Sunnyvale - Food Scraps Collection and Processing Program
Track
Outreach
Speakers
Deepti Jain, City of Sunnyvale, Solid Waste Division
Title
Environmental Engineering Coordinator
Speaker Abstract
This paper presents insights on the success of the City of Sunnyvale’s food scarps collection and processing programs. In 2017, City introduced a food scraps collection program to single-family households with a goal to divert organics that Sunnyvale residents were disposing of in the garbage. Since January 2022, all commercial customers and multi-family residential customers are also enrolled in it. Additionally, the City of Sunnyvale provides a separate collection of food scraps to businesses.
The city’s franchise waste hauler (Specialty) collects organics from residential and commercial businesses.
Collected food scraps loads are brought to the Sunnyvale Material Recovery and Transfer Station (SMaRT Station®) for pre-processing where it's converted into an organic slurry. The resultant slurry is transported to the Sustainable Organic Solutions (SOS) animal feed production facility in Santa Clara.
The City is exploring anaerobic digestion of the organic slurry at the City's Plant in near future.
The goal of this paper presentation is to share the evolution of the program, provide insights to implement and run a successful food scraps collection program, and, in particular, explore the implementation challenges a jurisdiction can face given the regulatory changes. The paper presentation will also share insights gained in the process of implementing, convincing the community, technical, political, and economic parameters as part of the evaluation process.
The audience will learn:
- Insights gained through the development and implementation of the program
- How the key factors of technology, environmental benefit, economics, and policy may influence the selection of the preferred strategy.