When it comes to waste management, Bowling Green is experiencing the sweet smell of success.

The city’s waste diversion rate is up and the cost of recycling is down.

Amanda Gamby, the city’s sustainability and public outreach coordinator, presented the First Half-2022 Waste Diversion Report to council’s sustainability committee last week.

“Looks like a lot of good news,” said the committee’s chair, Councilman Jeff Dennis.

The city’s 2021 waste diversion rate stands at 39.2%, up from 2020’s 38.5% – and significantly above the national average of 32%.

Currently, municipal solid waste and recycling is collected curbside from just over 5,700 one and two-family dwellings in the city each week.

The material is taken to the Wood County landfill for disposal at a price of $40 per ton. With recycling, since the start of 2020, according to Gamby’s report, all mixed recycling is delivered to a transfer station in Toledo and then transported to a material recovery facility operated by Republic Services Inc. in Oberlin.

“We continue to do that,” Gamby said of recycling. “It continues to work well. We continue to operate with the expanded list of materials that broadened the list of plastics we were allowed to take … and of course allows us to take glass again curbside.”

Instead of a flat rate, the city is billed per ton for recycling, which fluctuates on a monthly basis but the cost is averaging $100/ton, which is a decrease of $30/ton compared to this time last year, according to the report.

Gamby said that, in 2020, with schools closed and people working from home, the city saw five-year highs in tonnage collected for both municipal solid waste and recycling. The 2020 municipal solid waste tonnage topped 5,086 tons, while recycling surpassed 999 tons.

However, both tonnages decreased in 2021 – municipal solid waste tonnage decreased to just over 4,569 tons, the lowest in recent years. So far this year, municipal solid waste tonnage is down 3.7% over the same period in 2021, and recycling tonnage is down 3.2%.

The question is, Gamby said, whether these reductions are true reductions or not. There are a lot of anomalies due to the 2020 data and the pandemic, she said.

“We’ll see what the next six months continue to show as to where we end up at the end of the year,” she said.

On the subject of waste contaminating the recyclables, Gamby said that all of the curbside pickup trucks are outfitted with cameras, and the drivers report violations on a daily basis.

“These are tracked, and notices/educational materials are mailed,” the report read. “Visits/bin checks are performed for repeat offenders when necessary. When multiple education attempts fail, civil warnings/citations are issued,” but those situations are minimal.

All households receiving curbside services receive an annual mailer reminding them of the list of accepted items in the recycling program.

The most-reported issue continues to be recyclables that are bagged.

Gamby also spoke about the food waste drop-off site, which opened in March 2021. So far this year, the program has collected 12.5 tons, and it is estimated that it will divert 25-30 tons of food annually, at a cost of $5,500 to the city.

So far this year, brush collections in the city have numbered 898, at 755 addresses. The April/May brush collection netted 72.65 tons. The yard waste drop-off tonnage so far this year was just shy of 207 tons. A total of 283 Christmas trees were collected.

Gamby also updated the committee on the city’s climate action plan efforts. The city is now a member of the Local Governments for Sustainability organization, and has made use of their ClearPath tool, which municipalities can use to formulate their greenhouse gas emissions inventory, utilizing preset calculators.

A draft inventory was created and sent to a technical adviser, Gamby said, “and we’ve asked him to kind of compile a review for us with his team.”

She said that in the draft inventory, the largest greenhouse gas contributors in the city are the water and wastewater treatment facilities.

“They’re huge users of electricity and, of course, natural gas, to heat the facilities,” Gamby said. “We take the full hit for those because we are the owner and operators of those facilities.”

Asked about the issue by Dennis, she said they have implemented efforts concerning efficiencies at the plants.

The second largest emissions by category come from the city’s buildings and facilities, with the top three being the municipal court, the Bowling Green Police Division and the administration building.

The next phase in the planning effort will be to form a climate action planning committee. Gamby said that they appear to be close to creating the group, which will consist of internal and external stakeholders.