Editor’s Note: Diverted: Tracing the path of recycling in Whatcom County is a multi-part series that follows waste from curbside to commodity market.
A major shift is coming to how recycling is collected in much of Whatcom County.
The Whatcom County Council and Bellingham City Council have both voted to switch from separated to commingled or “single-stream” recycling. Sanitary Service Company (SSC) has been working with local governments for more than two years to pass ordinances that allow for a switch to single-stream recycling, with just one 90-gallon rolling toter bin that holds all recyclable materials.
The three-bin recycling system familiar to many customers in Whatcom County is antiquated and labor-intensive, according to waste collector SSC.
First put to the test in the Edgemoor neighborhood of south Bellingham in 2022, the single-bin system will be rolled out to single family accounts throughout the city by the end of this year, and in April, the county council voted to approve its own ordinance allowing single-bin collection.
SSC general manager Ted Carlson explained that recycling in Whatcom County is currently being collected in “the most expensive way possible.”
When collecting pre-sorted recycling, SSC employees perform extra physical labor — they exit their trucks at each stop, several hundred times a day, to manually empty the bins into the appropriate truck receptacles. The SSC trucks with separate receptacles are aging and don’t have a lot of capacity (around 1.5 tons) or compaction, so drivers must make several trips to a transfer station to unload during a collection day. Trucks designed to pick up a single wheeled recycling bin have automatic loading and compaction, and will save labor and reduce truck trips.
New pickup system: every other week
With the switch to large bins, collection changes from once a week to every other week. (The city’s contract with SSC mandates that recycling collection is on the same day as trash collection.) Residents in the neighborhoods that have switched to single, lidded bins have observed less wayward waste blown out of bins on windy collection days.
Commingled recycling does lead to higher rates of contamination, usually around 10% to 15%. Broken glass is the biggest cause of contamination. But in areas with single-stream recycling, the convenience of a single bin can result in increased customer participation, which could offset increased contamination.
According to a report by Whatcom County Health and Community Services, contamination rates from this area could be lower than those of other jurisdictions, because customers here have essentially been trained through the curb sort system to understand what is recyclable.
Assuming contamination does increase by the usual rate, a customer would need to recycle an extra 40 pounds of material a year to offset the loss. But SSC says it hopes to see a significant uptick in recycling by customers who hadn’t done so previously, thanks to the convenience of one bin.
Don’t expect rate cuts
Even though single-stream recycling will save the company money in the long haul by increasing efficiency and reducing operational cuts, customers should not expect rate cuts, Carlson said. However, he added, future rate changes might be smaller and more consistent because SSC won’t be as dependent on external markets.
In the past more recycled materials could be sold domestically or sent overseas for a profit, but volatility in the market has made recycling more expensive than waste disposal, at least for SSC.
“It’s very hard to build a collection program that relies on commodity pricing,” Carlson said.
When haulers like SSC want to increase their rates, either the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (in the unincorporated county) or the city government that holds a franchise contract with the company reviews the hauler’s financials before allowing the change. Otherwise, as the only hauler in its service area, SSC would have carte blanche to charge any fee it wished.
Garbage collection is mandatory for all residences and businesses in the city, per city code chapter 9.12, and using a different hauler than SSC is prohibited.
Bellingham Public Works communication manager Riley Grant explained that SSC is required to submit detailed, frequent financial reports so that the city can ensure service costs don’t significantly exceed expenses.
“The City’s contract with SSC prioritizes cost control through financial transparency,” Grant wrote in an email.
Collection rates, contractors vary
SSC’s rates are not published online. According to the company, it’s because the cost of SSC collection varies depending on location, the size of the garbage receptacle and the frequency of collection. As of last month, the charge for weekly trash and recycling collection at a single-family dwelling in Bellingham is $56.63 per month for a 60-gallon trash container. In the unincorporated county the same weekly trash service is around $20 for a 60-gallon bin, plus a $6 recycling surcharge and $3.40 commodity charge.
Rate changes for customers do not need to be reviewed by elected officials. Recently, the city administratively approved a 5% rate increase for residential customers that went into effect May 1.
The increase “factored in inflation and some of SSC’s investments in single-stream recycling and FoodPlus programs,” according to public works. The fee increase was advertised by the city in a public notice published in mid-March, and SSC included an advisory about it on service invoices in April but has not put out any news about it on social media or the SSC website.
Carlson, who previously served as the city’s public works director, told CDN that the fee increase was not related to single-stream recycling — higher dumping fees, labor costs, and other factors have contributed to increased operating costs for SSC.
“It’s just like utility fees going up, it’s the cost of doing business,” he said.
Unlike the city, Whatcom County code does not require garbage collection, but does require that all customers with trash pick-up also use recycling services. There are many customers who don’t recycle even though they’re paying for it, and an even larger number — around 10,000, at least — of rural county residents who don’t have any form of garbage collection.
SSC isn’t the only collection service in Whatcom County. Nooksack Valley Disposal & Recycling serves Lynden, Everson, Nooksack, Sumas and a portion of northern Whatcom County and will continue to require customers to sort their recyclables before collection. Point Roberts has its own waste hauler, Cando Recycling & Disposal.
Bellingham SSC customers who are being switched to single-stream will receive an information flier along with the delivery of their new recycling toter. They can keep their three old recycling bins or return them to the Roeder Drop Box & Recycling Facility at 1001 Roeder Ave in Bellingham. Residents of Alabama Hill should be the next in line to receive new bins, but Carlson said that SSC prefers not to give customers a lot of notice about which neighborhood will see the change next, because “it just causes confusion.”
In the rest of Whatcom County served by SSC, it will likely take several years to make the transition to single-stream, and “will depend on other jurisdictions’ discussions already in motion,” Carlson said.
City organic waste collection looms
Recent state legislation requires municipal solid waste programs to include organic waste collection (yard debris, food, and compostable packaging) by 2027. SSC offers FoodPlus service as a voluntary add-on and around 40% of SSC customers have organics collection, which costs $12.30 per month.
In 2023, the Bellingham City Council voted to make organics collection mandatory in Bellingham for single family households, and SSC will roll out the city-wide program in 2025. (For residents in complexes of five or more units and for commercial accounts, there will be no change to recycling and FoodPlus is still opt-in.) The Department of Ecology is responsible for developing guidance regarding exemptions for residential customers who have backyard composting to opt out of organics collection. Those exemptions have yet to be determined.
SSC would not share whether the cost for FoodPlus would change once it was mandatory for all single family accounts in the city.
“I can’t speculate to that,” Carlson said.
The county does not have any plans to make organics collection mandatory.
Future installments of Diverted will explore transfer stations, regional recycling centers and commercial composting.
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
