For Sacramento County’s 175th anniversary, the Department of Waste Management & Recycling looks back at garbage and recycling and peeks into the future. As with everything, the County has learned a lot along the way and continues to strive to provide essential waste management and recycling services in an environmentally and fiscally responsible manner to unincorporated area communities within Sacramento County!
Drop-Off Facilities
On July 1, 1967, Sacramento County began operating Kiefer Landfill that sits on 1,084 acres and is surrounded by 3,000 acres of open space. In 1997, the landfill gas control system was operationalized. In 1999, Kiefer Landfill expanded the gas control system by implementing a Gas-to-Energy Plant to capture landfill gas from decaying garbage to generate electricity for SMUD. The landfill also has an ABOP (antifreeze, batteries, oil, paint) & Special Waste Drop-Off Facility that accepts these household hazardous wastes from residents free of charge. Over the years, society’s view of how garbage is handled has changed. With more people and more disposable products, landfills and landfill management practices, have become more sustainable. These sustainable practices, advanced engineering and assistance from our customers that are combined with environmental stewardship help ensure that the disposal capacity at Kiefer Landfill will last to 2071, and likely decades beyond.
Since 1973, the County has been operating the North Area Recovery Station (NARS) – originally known as the North Area Transfer Station – to receive waste from the public, businesses and private waste haulers. The NARS name change happened in 2000 when the county added a recycling drop-off area. In January 2002, a full Household Hazardous Waste Drop-off Facility was added to NARS to emphasize more recycling and recovery. In 2023, NARS began construction of a Commercial Waste Transfer Building to add 50,000 square feet of additional tipping space, organic material transfer upgrades, and site operational improvements to traffic flow, safety, and the overall customer experience.
Residential Curbside Collection
In July 1968, fifty-seven years ago, after a private contractor ceased its services, the County commenced its first residential curbside collection services that averaged 54,800 tons per year with two crew members per collection truck. Crews would manually lift metal cans owned by the customers to consolidate the curbside garbage from multiple customers and emptied the garbage into a rear-loader truck. Fourteen years later in 1982, the average garbage tonnage had increased 239% to 185,700 tons.
In 1986, automated curbside collection services of 60- and 90-gallon garbage containers began and collection increased to 215,000 tons that year.
Automated weekly curbside collection for recyclables started in 1990. The County provided 3 individual stackable bins to each customer to separate glass, plastic and metal cans, and paper. With the introduction of collecting recyclables separate from garbage, a smaller 30-gallon garbage container was added to the 60-gallon and 90-gallon garbage containers. By 1992, the County was collecting 20,600 tons of recyclable material per year with the 3-bin system. At the peak of the 3-bin system, the County collected 28,000 tons of material processed by local recycling processors.
From 1997-1998, the County phased in every other week residential curbside collection of green waste yard trimming material and changed the 3-bin recycling to a single stream mixed recycling collection cart – which continues today. By 2000, the amount of recycled material collected had nearly doubled the amount collected at the peak of the 3-bin system.
By 2002, the curbside collection fleet was transitioned from diesel to cleaner Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), and subsequently in 2015, the fleet was converted to even cleaner and faster fueling with Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
New curbside cart colors for each stream were implemented in 2012, to begin standardization of black for garbage, green for organics and blue for recycling.
On July 1, 2022, with the implementation of California’s Senate Bill 1383, the Green Waste cart collected every other week became the Organics cart for weekly collection of food scraps, food-soiled paper and yard trimmings to keep organic material out of landfills, reduce methane emissions and turn a previous waste into beneficial compost for our customers. Also, the County began phasing out old carts that are not color and label compliant as part of the SB 1383 mandate.
Currently, Sacramento County provides residential curbside collection of Garbage, Organics, Recycling, Used Oil/Filters and Bulky Waste Pickup to more than 165,000 customer accounts in the unincorporated area. Collection drivers service an average of 1,000 accounts daily.
Commercial Program
The newest regulatory Commercial Program began in 2022, for businesses and most multifamily properties in unincorporated Sacramento County to establish commercial solid waste collection services and implement required organics and recycling collection programs. The Commercial Program team assists these businesses with expert guidance to simplify waste compliance and achieve a successful waste management program that includes interior and exterior waste and recycling requirements, typically using local commercial franchised solid waste haulers. The Commercial Program also issues and manages more than 25 commercial solid waste hauling franchise agreements for private haulers.
As well, the team assists various industry sectors, such as special districts, federal/state facilities, universities/colleges, schools, special events and construction and demolition waste (C&D) recycling compliance.
Learn More
Visit the Sacramento County Department of Waste Management & Recycling to learn more about all our programs and services at SacGreenTeam.com. dolor...