Confused about what goes in the blue cart?

It’s understandable given a miscue by the City of Manteca in messaging last year that indicated it was OK to once again place glass bottles, newspapers, and other paper products into the blue recycling cart.
That is contrary to what the city is now saying in the 2024 recycling guide that’s been mailed to solid waste customers.

“We made a mistake,” City Manager Toni Lundgren said.

It wasn’t that the city hadn’t lined up a firm that would take the city’s truckloads of recycling if they weren’t contaminated with garbage and could include newspapers and other paper as well as glass bottles. They did.

But when Public Works Director Carl Brown scrutinized the plan one final time, he noted allowances weren’t made for the additional travel time to the Stockton Recycling yard in east central Stockton.

Failure to do so impacted labor costs, wear and tear, and the need for additional truck maintenance.

As such, they threatened to undermine the plan supported by a four-tiered rate increase that started going into effect in December.

Had the city gone ahead they would have had inadequate  funds to do what was needed. And that could have meant a supplementary rate hike.

Brown made the decision to put the brakes on the return to the blue cart of newspapers, other paper, and glass bottles until such time Manteca has addressed equipment and contamination  issues.

“We need to stretch dollars as far as we can,” Brown said.

The bottom line for now — and to help make sure the city is on to the most economical path to comply with state mandates regarding landfall diversions — has Brown asking residents to disregard what they were told at community meetings or read in previous newspaper stories about the city again allowing newspapers and such in the blue carts.

That, along with the targeted completion by April of the distribution of 96 gallon brown garbage carts to replace 64- and 32-gallon carts, should allow the city to reduce contamination in blue carts enough to prove to more local vendors such as Forward Landfill on Austin Road just north of Manteca that the city is meeting required standards.

Forward Landfill had been taking what solid waste trucks collected in blue carts for free and then separating out the recyclables to resale.

But when the contamination got too high — 64 percent — due to garbage being tossed in by household customers, Foward Landfill was paying more in labor than they were receiving for the recyclables they salvaged.

As a result, Forward landfill stopped accepting the truckloads collected from blue carts.

That forced the city to dump recyclable truck loads at the county landfill as no one else was willing to take loads with that high of a contamination level.

That lead the city to paying hefty tipping fees that weren’t factored into the previous rate structure.

Stockton Recycling signed on to take the recyclables with newspapers and such included, but the city still has to get the contamination percentage down.

The switch to the 96 gallon garage carts, having food waste dumped with yard waste in the green cart for use in composting, and recycling collection going to a weekly basis within the year instead of once every two weeks, is expected to bring the contamination rate down as it gives households  significantly more capacity in terms of tossing out garbage and recyclables.
Even so, it makes more sense for the city to meet the Forward Landfill requirements for recyclables given it takes significantly less money to take recyclables to them instead of Stockton Recycling on Waterloo Road.

The reasons Brown noted:

*Forward Landfill is just several miles north of Manteca on Ausitn Road with minimal traffic and virtually no issues cropping up such as accidents blocking the travel route.

*Stockton Recycling is not only a lot farther in terms of miles, but it involves traveling Highway 99 and dealing with associated traffic and delays as well as driving a fairly long distanced down streets within Stockton.

*As such, it would add upwards of two hours a day for drivers servicing routes.

*It also would increase mileage which meant more frequent maintenance periods that would put a crimp in fleet capacity and reduce the lives of the trucks that are around $500,000.

*Manteca is currently short drivers plus needs to add additional positions and add more trucks to implement its strategy to meet state mandates to reduce burying trash in a landfill.

Brown said the city is working to get everything lined up properly by the end of the year to again recycle newspapers, other paper, and glass bottles.

He added when Manteca does, staff wants to assure ratepayers that it is being done at the lowest possible cost and in the most effective way to meet the mandates and reduce pressure on future rate hikes.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com