Philadelphia Hosts 2007 MWMA Fall Summit

The Municipal Waste Management Association (MWMA), the environmental affiliate of The U.S. Conference of Mayors hosted its annual summit in Philadelphia from September 19-21. More than 60 public and private sector urban environmental professionals met to learn with and from each other, exchange best practices and explore both everyday and long term challenges. Hosted by MWMA President and Philadelphia Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Clarena Tolson, the Fall Summit gave attendees an opportunity to learn about some of the city’s innovative litter prevention programs and get to know this city of neighborhoods.  Session included updates on Waste To Energy, a discussion on Zero Waste; How New Technology Can Be Used to Increase Operational Efficiencies, Safety Best Practices, and New FEMA Regulations for Disaster Plans. For more information about the MWMA or for copies of the presentations please check out our website at usmayors.org/mwma.

 
Managing Municipal Waste in an Urban Environment
By: Susan Jarvis

The city of Philadelphia prides itself on being a city of neighborhoods and this presents very specific challenges and opportunities for the collection and removal of solid waste. The city’s Managing Director, Loree Jones welcomed MWMA members to the city and touted the city’s special commitment to cleaning and maintaining its’ neighborhoods. The core mission of Commissioner Clarena Tolson’s Streets and Sanitation department is “clean streets are safe streets” with many different programs playing a role in implementing this mission statement.

Carlton Williams, Philadelphia’s Deputy Commissioner for Sanitation briefed attendees on the city’s innovative SWEEPs program. SWEEPs, which stands for Streets and Walkways Education and Enforcement Program, employs 36 officers, who are responsible for working with neighborhoods and residents to  address sanitation problems, including trash set out times, trash limit regulations, litter laws, recycling violations, dumpster laws and illegal dumping violations.  SWEEPs officers issue between 80-90,000 code notice violations (CNVs), resulting in $1.2 million in fines. Each CNV is written to identify both the violation and the violator. Once the CVN is written it is forwarded to the Bureau of Administrative Adjudication for processing. Violators can either pay the fine, or request a hearing to dispute the charge. Currently, CNV's are written and filed by hand, and the city is exploring automating the system with Personal Digital Assistants and cameras.

Like many cities, illegal dumping continues to be a problem. In 2006, 37,000 tons of illegally dumped materials were collected which cost tax payers $2.2 million in clean up and disposal costs.  The city is also challenged by illegal dumping of tires, neglected properties, recycling violations and high and overgrown weeds. Mr. Williams said the city uses “enforcement as a tool to implement waste management, including reduce, reuse, recycle, to ensure a clean and safe environment.”

Scott McGrath, Philadelphia’s Recycling Director, briefed attendees on the transition to single stream recycling. The city has created a pilot education program directed at Northeast Philadelphia. The education program consists of direct mail, print ads, automated calls, community meetings and street teams which will go door to door to explain the new process.  The single stream recycling program has increased tonnage, increased crew production and increased recycling rates.

Phoebe Coles, Executive Director of Keep Philadelphia Beautiful (KPB), reported on innovative program called “The Litter Index.”. Implemented by KPB, the litter index is a scoring tool used to visually rate an area by providing a measurement of the litter in a given area.  In order to tailor the program to Philadelphia, KPB created manageable sections of the city and modified the judging scale.  The judging scale is both numerical (ratings of 1-4, 1 being best) and color coded (green meaning no litter to red, extremely littered).  Keep Philadelphia Beautiful worked with the city’s block captains to score each area. Red and orange areas were tagged as needing immediate attention. The city coordinated “Operation Clean Streets” to provide front end loaders, back pack blowers and street sweepers.  Three “Love Where You Live” rallies were held in red areas to honor block captains and bring resources to the areas.

Philadelphia’s innovative community clean up and anti-litter programs leverage the city’s unique sense of neighborhood pride to create “clean and safe streets”.
 

Preparing for Disaster and New FEMA Regulations Discussed at MWMA Meeting

By: Ted Fischer

Mike Carroll, Bureau Chief for the Solid Waste Management Department, City of Orlando, Jonathan Burgiel, CEO of Beck Disaster Recovery and Mark Stafford, COO, DRC Emergency Services presented FEMA’s new regulations and guidelines and disaster preparedness at the MWMA Fall Summit in Philadelphia.

“Disasters happen anywhere, not just in Florida. If you have any place within your community that could be flood prone, have severe thunderstorms or tornado damage, live on an active fault line or near a man-made disaster then you need to know how to react in the face of a disaster,” said Carroll. “Training for a disaster is crucial, having nothing in place after a disaster is the worst choice.”

MWMA attendees were encouraged to look into standby monitoring contracts that would protect city assets and allow companies to help assist when disasters strike. Carroll said that FEMA’s guidelines typically change after every major disaster and having standby monitoring contracts allow you to work with companies to make sure the latest FEMA guidelines are known. Carroll also encouraged cities to employ a stand by debris removal contractor as well as train for a disaster.”

Carroll said, “Make sure you have receipts and a record of everything you spent on the clean up, FEMA is very by the book when collecting information on how much was spent by the city on clean up.”

 “Think of FEMA as inexpensive insurance,” Stafford said,  “The FEMA public assistance pilot program has grants that are based on estimates, includes an increased Federal share, a debris recycling incentive, a forced labor incentive and has many pros and cons which you will want to understand before disaster strikes. FEMA has publications in 30 areas and their rules do change after every major disaster.”

“There are benefits to having stand by contractors. FEMA gives a 5% funding enhancement and they will expedite response and recovery. You will have a dual familiarity with personnel, joint planning capability and joint training exercises that can be done,” said Burgiel.

New Technology Increases Solid Waste and Recycling Efficiency

By: Ted Fischer

Using new technology for increased operational efficiencies was another topic discussed by MWMA attendees at the Fall Summit in Philadelphia. Most cities and solid waste departments rely on their employees to get the job done with few mistakes and optimally less overtime spent. This session focused on routing software and automated collection programs to save time and money.

Dr. Surya Sahoo for the Institute of Information Technology (ITT) and former Public Works Director for the City of Houston, Buck Buchanan, were on hand to discuss how the city of Houston worked with routing technology provided by IIT.  Waste collection route optimization is recognized as one the most complex routing challenges in the field of operations research which is the use of scientific methodology and logistics to improve and optimize the business process. The city of Houston after using the technology devised a plan for solid waste and recycling workers to collect using a route map which only featured right turns within a particular community. The driver, even though thought the idea was a bit bizarre, found out that it saved time, energy, effort and used less of the city’s overtime budget by following the proposed route.

David Pearson of Waste Management’s Houston office also spoke about the technology and how it is excelling Waste Management’s role in collection and enforces their commitment to customer service through on time collection and reduce costs based on the time and money routing software. “At Waste Management we think GREEN everyday (G for great operations, R for a respectable brand, E for empowerment, E for engage, and N for our neighbors),” Pearson said, “Waste has a regional focus and with this technology it makes it possible to improve efficiency, cut down on service errors and honestly reduce the number for trucks on the road.” Waste Management currently works with IIT and their web-based platform to handle routing.

City of Akron Director of Public Works, Paul Barnett and Madeline Szots, Director of Marketing for LaBrie Environmental spoke on the city of Akron’s Automated Collection techniques in order to eliminate the hurdles of the current collection process. The city of Akron along with Labrie has devised a method that revolves around a collection system consisting of specially designed carts and refuse collection vehicles equipped with automatic arms. Residents then have an opportunity to place the carts in designated spots on the curb side. Then a single operator picks up and dumps the carts using an articulated arm controlled from within the cab, producing a higher rate in productivity, increased efficiency and increased worker safety

Philadelphia Showcases Efforts to Promote Recycling and Clean Neighborhoods

By: Ted Fischer

The City of Philadelphia has always been known for its history, sound and flavor. The Municipal Waste Management Association’s Fall Summit (September 19-21) was able to showcase many of the highlights including the “Rocky Route” - settings for the movie - along with stopping and speaking with various neighborhood block captains regarding how they are working to keep their neighborhoods clean and free of illegal dumping. Conference attendees were very interested in learning how Philadelphia relies on thousands of block captains to take care of their streets and neighbors by creating a sense of safety within the inner city communities.

Philadelphia also showcased their single stream recycling facility which along with Recycle Bank work to keep fewer items out of the landfill and more items back in active circulation. The Blue Mountain recycling facility was fully operational when the tour arrived and guests were able to watch the process via 360 camera and walking tours of the facility. Tour speakers also mentioned a new center where materials once considered waste (Electronics, books, or other materials) can be dropped off and then other city residents can come and see if they have the item they need for little or free. This method also cuts down on the cost for recycling and transporting waste to the landfill. For more information, including presentations and materials, please visit our website at www.usmayors.org/uscm/mwma

Safety Issues Discussed at MWMA Fall Summit

By: Ted Fischer

“Unsafe behavior leads to accidents,” said David Biderman at The Municipal Waste Management Association Fall Summit in Philadelphia. Mr. Biderman, General Council for the National Solid Waste Management Association, joined the MWMA membership to present practical safety tips for municipal solid waste departments.

Solid Waste collection is often viewed as one of the most dangerous jobs due to the number of yearly accidents in the field and the MWMA is concerned with this growing trend. According to studies, waste/recyclable collection workers have the 5th highest fatality rate in the US, which is 10 times the national average and 4 times higher then construction related injuries.

“Solid waste vehicles are also involved in many accidents causing fatalities, injuries and property damage to third-parties,” said Biderman, “with 97 fatalities and 2,428 injuries to third parties in 2005, something needs to be done to educate on the importance of safety. The majority of accidents and injuries are caused by unsafe behavior, not unsafe conditions.” He said safety is equal to getting adults to change their unsafe behavior, which of course is not always the easiest task.

Practical safety tips include making sure management is committed to safety training, employee participation is required, hazard assessment is key, hazard abatement, medical management and measured performance are also necessary to have a quality program succeed. “Safety is more then a program, safety needs to be part of your departments’ culture, part of their DNA,” Biderman said. Commissioners and managers need to play a leadership role with drivers, helpers and others. Mr. Biderman also suggested making sure your commissioners and directors are providing regular route observations to make sure the corrections can be made before accidents occur.

Thank you!  MWMA’s 2007 Fall Summit Exhibitors and Sponsors

The Benefits of Making Energy from Waste Discussed Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions Realized

By Judy Sheahan

Derek Porter of Covanta Energy, Ted Michaels of Integrated Waster Services Association and Mark Lyons of Waste Management, Inc, spoke about the multiple benefits of turning trash into energy including reducing greenhouse gas emissions and as an alternative energy source.

Porter discussed the solid waste hierarchy or pyramid that has been promoted by the Environmental Protection Agency – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Waste-to-Energy, and Landfill which is the last option. Porter said that waste generation has increased by over a third in the past 25 years in the U.S. alone. Currently, over 249 million tons of trash goes into landfills while only 29 million tons goes to waste to energy facilities. In the European Union, they have a directive that requires the reduction of land filling raw garbage. When garbage decomposes in landfills it generates methane, a greenhouse gas which is approximately 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Methane makes up 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions with landfills being the source for 25 percent of methane.

In addition to offsetting methane from landfills, Porter explained how nearly one ton less carbon dioxide is released into the air due to avoided land disposal, fossil fuel power generation and metals production for every ton of trash that is combusted in a modern energy from waste facility. Also energy from waste avoids 33 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would have otherwise been released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels instead. Another benefit found is communities who utilize energy from waste have higher recycling rates than the national average.

Although the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency has recognized that waste should be considered a renewable source of power, this assertion has been challenged by environmental groups. Michaels gave a legislative update regarding Congressional action impacting energy from waste. The House created a national Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that does not recognize waste from energy as renewable but they extended the production tax credits for waste to energy for four additional years. The Senate has neither provision.