Local concerns over whether Redwood Empire Disposal trucks have been collecting recycling and garbage in the same receptacles received a response this week, when an administrator for the group that oversees Redwood said drivers had indeed been collecting them together and separating the items manually at a disposal yard—but only because the fleet has been down one truck lately.
Jim Salyers, of the Ratto Group, said he had directed supervisors to discontinue the practice. Instead, drivers—still short one truck—will have to take two trips, one for recycling, one for garbage. The downside, he cautioned, could mean trucks being out longer than usual, and more noise.
“People are going to hear the truck go by and will find their recycling still there, which I imagine they may find annoying,” Mr. Salyer said. “That’s just going to be something we’ll have to deal with.”
Last week the Light published a letter by Inverness resident Melanie Stone, who wrote that she had witnessed trucks combining recycling and garbage because, as one driver told her, “they didn’t have enough small trucks with divided sections for some of our small roads with over-hanging wires.” Other residents said they had seen the same, and a truck driver who was stopped by the Light confirmed that the practice was taking place.
“We really care about the environment,” Ms. Stone said. “And then we find out that it’s dumped with the trash. It just seems a farce and unfair for us to go to the trouble to be conscientious and to recycle what’s appropriate.”
Mr. Salyers, who just took over administration for Redwood’s West Marin operations on Monday, could not say why one truck had been out of commission. But he noted that separating recycling and garbage manually was an uncommon practice that “would just happen in an emergency,” such as being short a truck.
He could not say whether some drivers had independently been mixing garbage and recycling without separating the two later.
“If it did happen, I can’t change what happened,” said Mr. Salyers. “But it will not happen again in the future.”
Faced with declining oil prices, Redwood Empire has suffered revenue losses recently due to low demand for recycled products. Mr. Salyer could not provide general estimates for how much Redwood had lost out during the down recyclables market.