Diversion Services

City of Mountain View

Zero Waste Plan (2011)

Project Description

In February 2011, the City of Mountain View (City) City Council selected HF&H to prepare the City’s Zero Waste Plan (Plan). The HF&H team includes ESA Inc., Kies Strategies, and Steven Sherman Consulting. The Plan stems from the City’s work in developing a broad range of sustainability practices.

The Plan will provide a detailed roadmap for reaching a minimum of 90% diversion from landfill disposal. The City’s diversion rate was 72% in 2006 and the Plan will reduce per capita disposal rates for both the residential and commercial sectors. The Plan will address materials collected by the City’s franchised hauler, non-franchised material collected by third parties and self-haul materials. The Plan will assist the City in reaching its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal of 20% below 1990 level by 2020.

The Plan will build on a recently completed waste characterization study conducted by the City in conjunction with the City of Sunnyvale. A key aspect of the Plan will be the coordination of activities with the cities of Sunnyvale and Palo Alto, the three users of the SMaRT Station regarding recovery activities for materials prior to arrival at, and upon departure from, the SMaRT Station.

HF&H Solution

Key highlights of HF&H’s proposed approach to preparing the Plan include:

1. A public input process designed to elicit input from a broad spectrum of the community, using meetings, targeted surveys and social media to reach single-family and multi-family residents and businesses of all sizes. The process will culminate with a presentation to the Council’s Environmental Sustainability Committee.
2. A rigorous process for identifying Zero Waste needs and opportunities with review of up to 60 discrete options, addressing upstream (product and packaging redesign to reduce waste, advanced disposal fees, etc.), midstream (reuse) and downstream (recyclables and organics processing and residue disposal) activities. The Plan will also address funding options in a post-Proposition 26 environment.
3. An action plan defining the scheduling and sequencing, budgeting and staffing needs for implementing the Plan recommendations.
4. Presentation of the final Plan to, and adoption of the Plan by, the City Council.

Results

This project is currently underway; therefore, the results are pending. The Plan is scheduled to be completed Summer 2011.