San Luis Obispo County waste agency needs to walk the walk

December 21, 2024

OPINION by JULIE TACKER

Based on increases in fuel, wages and strict regulations on what goes into the landfill, many of us in San Luis Obispo County are once again facing garbage rate increases.

To help alleviate the impacts to the landfills, we look to the SLO County Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA) to find out how to sort our trash at home and at work. We go out of our way to dispose of items at waste stations or return light bulbs and batteries to the places we purchased them.

The IWMA’s main purpose is to educate the public in order to help meet the ever changing and stricter regulations surrounding all things garbage, according to its latest mission statement.

On Dec. 10, I literally looked into the IWMA’s waste bins parked behind their office at 870 Osos Street in San Luis Obispo. I found a wine bottle (recyclable) in their trash can and their office papers bagged in a plastic garbage can liner in their recycle bin.

Most of us know that the plastic bag should be removed and the paper, cardboard, glass and metal is to be loose in the blue bin where it is sorted at the landfill for recycling.

Thinking it must have been a one-off that the IWMA’s waste containers were contaminated; I stopped by again on Dec. 20 and plant material and food waste commingled with plastic coated cardboard, trash and recyclables. This commingling makes it all landfill material.

I’m not perfect, but as a longtime recycler, re-user, and a self-proclaimed “trash nazi;” I have done a lot to keep things out of the waste stream, at my home and at work. My family faithfully uses the countertop green waste container, schlepping smelly decomposing vegetable cuttings mixed with coffee grinds and egg shells out of the kitchen and into our yard waste container a couple times a week.

We sort our junk mail, glass and cans into our blue bin, while our gray 20 gallon container is the smallest offered with a minimal amount of trash making its way to the landfill. Each week, these three cans are rolled to the curb where our waste hauler dutifully dumps it into their trucks and hauls it away.

Many county residents try to do their best to help out.

The IWMA is anticipating $3.8 million in revenue this fiscal year, with $1.86 coming from every trash bill I pay to educate us on sorting trash for the good of the landfill and the environment.

The IWMA needs to walk-the-walk they are paid to talk.