Analytics to help San Francisco achieve zero waste

IBM has recently announced a collaboration with Recology, San Francisco’s resource recovery company, to continue reducing landfill disposal by further improving recycling programs designed to help the city achieve zero waste by 2020.

San Francisco’s diversion rate – the amount of waste diverted from landfill disposal – totals 78 percent, the highest in the country. Just last year, independent studies named San Francisco the Greenest City in North America due to advanced recycling programs.*

In collaboration with IBM Business Partner Key Info Systems, Recology is using IBM's Smarter Computing approach to IT to manage and mine large sets of data to determine types and quantities of materials in San Francisco’s waste stream. Recology pinpoints the location, types and amount of waste that needs to be collected for sorting or composting.

Gleaning insights from this information allows Recology to identify the most effective recycling programs for different business districts and neighborhoods. By tailoring recycling programs and services in this way, Recology operates more efficiently, which helps protect the environment and saves costs, which helps cities better manage collection and disposal fees – all steps that ultimately benefit residents and businesses. 

As a result of this analytical approach to recycling, Recology customers in San Francisco have reduced the garbage they send to the landfill by 49.7 percent, from 730,000 tons in 2000, to 367,300 tons in 2011. By recycling 1.2 million tons of paper, the program has saved 20 million trees; by recycling 174,000 tons of glass, enough energy was saved to power the city's cable car system for nearly three years; and, by recycling 135,000 tons of metal, 19 million gallons of oil was saved.

Improved recycling services give customers the means to participate every day in programs that directly benefit the environment and to better manage their disposal costs. Recology offers 20 distinct recycling programs in San Francisco, more than any other city in the United States. Yet the monthly fee paid by residential customers is equal to or less than the fee charged in other major cities.

The Curbside Compost Collection Program provided by Recology in San Francisco has diverted 1.1 million tons of food and plants from landfill disposal and turned that material into nutrient-rich compost used by local farms and vineyards to grow healthy crops.

Since its inception, the compost collection program has reduced carbon emissions by more than 347,500 metric tons. That is equal to offsetting emissions from all vehicles crossing the Bay Bridge for 2.1 years.**

San Francisco greenhouse gas emissions are nearly 12 percent below 1990 levels and have exceeded emission reduction goals set by both the State of California and the United Nations.

"San Francisco continues to make progress toward our Zero Waste goal and we have achieved the highest diversion rate of any major city in the country.  Our success stems from a strong partnership with our diverse communities and our commitment to making recycling easy and convenient for everyone.  I thank IBM for providing innovative solutions that have contributed to making San Francisco the greenest city in North America," San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said.  

"Cities are struggling with a wide range of challenges and threats to sustainability in their core operations,” said George McGrath, chief operating officer at Recology. "Our collaboration with IBM has helped us transform the programs we provide in San Francisco and, in turn, the very way people view bottles, coffee grounds, packaging, plastic bags, and other materials they generate every day.”

With the use of IBM's Smarter Computing technology Recology is also able to manage and maintain this complex operation and route dispatching of trucks. These functions require a dependable and flexible system to help the company manage logistics and an ever-changing waste stream with maximum efficiency.

* U.S. and Canada Green City Index, Economist Intelligence Unit.
**Total CO2E benefit (methane avoided and cabon sequestered) calculated per protocol set by the Climate Action Registry.