LAMORINDA WEEKLY | Pilot No More


David Shields (El Charro) received a recognition award in Lafayette; from left, Shields, Paul Morsen, Mike Anderson, Carol Federighi, Bart Carr Picture courtesy of CCCSWA

"The commercial food waste recycling pilot was a success thanks to the valuable support we received from participating Lamorinda businesses," said Bart Carr, Senior Program Manager with the Contra Costa County Solid Waste Authority (CCCSWA). In fact it was so successful that the program is now a standard service offered to restaurants and food providers in CCCSWA's service area, which recently gave recognition awards to all of the Lamorinda establishments that participated in the pilot.

The program consists of sorting food scraps at the source, collecting it, and transferring it to an EBMUD digester that transforms the waste into electricity and regurgitates soil-covering material. During the pilot phase, CCCSWA supported businesses by providing containers and training that made the transition easy.

"It's not difficult to implement," says Matt Carroll, General Manager of Sodexo Dining Services at Saint Mary's College, "We collected probably 2000 pounds of waste a week, and continued to divert some of the food waste for the campus' garden compost as well."

As the program expands on a voluntary basis CCCSWA, and its partner Allied Waste Services, are recruiting a full-time manager who will continue the training and support for this program. Carr indicates that the goal for the rate of expansion is of 10-12 new participating businesses per month. Some of the new participants in Lamorinda include Berg Senior Services (Moraga Royale) in Moraga, Mountain Mike's Pizza and Blue Ginko in Lafayette, and Trattoria Lupetti and Table 24 in Orinda. Carr noted that Safeway does not participate in the program because it collects its own fruit and vegetable waste and composts it in Livermore.