(Amended by Ord. No. 184,665, Eff. 1/25/17.)
Under the City’s RENEW LA Plan, the City committed to reaching Zero Waste by diverting 70 percent of the solid waste generated in the City by 2013, diverting 90 percent by 2025, and becoming a Zero Waste city by 2030. State law currently requires at least 50 percent solid waste diversion and establishes a state-wide goal of 75 percent diversion by 2020. Moreover, state law requires mandatory commercial recycling in all businesses and multi- family complexes and imposes additional reporting requirements on local agencies, including the City. In order to meet these requirements and goals, increasing recycling and diversion in the commercial and multi-family waste sectors is imperative. The commercial and multi-family sectors produce most of the City’s solid waste. Currently, a significant amount of commercial and multi-family solid waste generated in the City, including recyclables and organics, is going to landfills, resulting in unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions. The City has a responsibility under state law to ensure effective and efficient waste and recycling service for its businesses and residents. The City will fulfill that responsibility most successfully, and also meet its own Zero Waste policy goals, by ensuring that its solid waste, including recyclables and organics, are collected, transported and processed in a manner that reduces environmental and social impacts on the City and the region.
An exclusive, competitive franchise system for the collection, transportation and processing of commercial and multi-family solid waste will aid the City in meeting its diversion goals by, among other things: (i) requiring franchisees to meet diversion targets; (ii) increasing the capacity for partnership between the City and solid waste haulers; (iii) allowing the City to establish consistent methods for diversion of recyclables and organics; (iv) increasing the City’s ability to track diversion, which will enable required reporting and monitoring of state mandated commercial and multi-family recycling; (v) increasing the City’s ability to ensure diversion quality in the processing facilities handling its waste and recyclables; and (vi) increasing the City’s capacity to enforce compliance with federal, state, county and local standards.
An exclusive, competitive franchise system will also have other beneficial effects, including a reduction in adverse environmental impacts – unnecessary solid waste truck traffic as well as emissions and street degradation – and also protection of ratepayers, ensuring high customer service standards, and increase in solid waste hauler accountability.
As the City moves towards its Zero Waste goals through an exclusive franchise system, technology also should improve over the course of time to increase source reduction, recycling and composting, and diversion opportunities and capabilities. Relatedly, so too should the opportunities increase in number and diversity of qualified subcontractors to perform work industry-wide, including opportunities for development and mentoring of franchisees and subcontractors. The City has an interest in increasing the number and diversity of qualified personnel in the solid waste and recycling industry, especially as to those individuals available to service the City.
While the move to an exclusive franchise system will generate many benefits for the City and its residents, the change also will increase the risk that a labor dispute will interfere with collection services. To protect the City’s interest in efficient and uninterrupted collection services, the City will require franchisees to produce evidence that they are parties to written, enforceable agreements that prohibit labor organizations and their members from engaging in picketing, work stoppages, boycotts or other economic interference with collection services.