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Extracted from Consolidated Report
This investigation was originally published as part of a larger consolidated report containing multiple investigations. View the consolidated PDF for the complete document.
San Mateo County Grand Jury
• 2024-2025
deduced that contamination exists in single-family homes and businesses, though one setting
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings 8 findings
F1
Page 33
High green cart enrollment costs and insufficient bin space are the dominant contributors to low participation rates among multi-family dwellings and businesses.
F2
Page 33
Green bin contamination among compliant multi-family dwellings and businesses prevents them from diverting more organic waste.
F3
Page 33
City, County, and RethinkWaste compliance outreach efforts for multi-family dwellings and businesses could improve because a significant portion of these properties remain non-compliant.
F4
Page 33
Multi-family dwellings and businesses produce a significant amount of the County’s organic waste.
F5
Page 33
Citizens cannot conveniently access reliable diversion and participation rates because JPAs and cities do not make the information available on their government websites.
F6
Page 33
Assessing progress on organic waste diversion in Atherton, Brisbane, Millbrae, Pacifica, San Bruno, South San Francisco, and Woodside is difficult because they and their haulers do not separate waste tons by property type on their annual or quarterly reports.
F7
Page 33
An alternate and reliable method to separating waste tons by property type would be analyzing contamination statistics from route audits and waste evaluations.
F8
Page 33
Brisbane, South San Francisco, and Millbrae cannot properly track their waste trends since their hauler and contractor have contradictory diversion rate formulas and tonnage measurements.
Recommendations 8
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R1Page 33Beginning March 1, 2025, cities, the County, and RethinkWaste should host regular in- person green cart enrollment summits for non-compliant businesses and multi-family dwellings, and identify other new compliance strategies.
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R2Page 33Beginning January 1, 2025, Brisbane, South San Francisco, and Millbrae should investigate their Electronic Annual Report contractor’s diversion rate conversion formulas and their hauler’s waste scales. 32 2023-2024 San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury
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R3Page 34By July 1, 2025, Brisbane, South San Francisco, and Millbrae should begin using the simpler diversion rate calculation the report mentioned or develop a contingency plan if their hauler’s scales are inaccurate.
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R4Page 34Beginning November 30, 2024, cities should publish quarterly or annual waste reports with diversion and participation rates on their government websites.
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R5Page 34Beginning December 31, 2024, cities should separate waste tons and diversion rates into the three (or two) property types (business, residential, multi-family) in their annual or quarterly reports.
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R6Page 34Starting April 1, 2025, cities that cannot separate waste tons and diversion rates by property type should conduct waste evaluations on highly contaminated routes more often.
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R7Page 34Starting May 1, 2025, cities that cannot separate waste tons and diversion rates by property type should analyze problematic routes’ past and present contamination trends to track their progress.
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R8Page 34By February 1, 2025, jurisdictions should develop and implement new ways to make green bins usable in multi-family dwellings’ and businesses’ narrow or small waste enclosures.