May 7, 2013
Strategies that Support Organics Management Practices
Rural, semi-rural, and small towns often face challenges to implementing organics diversion and composting programs. Challenges range from a lack of information about program opportunities, to concerns about costs, and compliance with state requirements for compost operations. There are many factors that contribute to developing a successful program. Securing the support of decision makers, as well as the citizenry, is a first step for moving forward. And, a successful program must be tailored to meet the needs of each community.
Decision makers and the public may need to be persuaded of the value in adding organics management as an undertaking for their community. They may feel the program isn't needed or that organics management is too costly. These negative attitudes can have many roots, but generally it is the result of a lack of information about the amount of organics being thrown in the trash or "managed" through backyard burning, and the associated wasted resources to the community. As a result, the potential benefits and economic growth opportunities through improved organics management are overlooked.
Getting Started with Public Awareness
A public outreach and education program about the value of organics diversion and composting can be the most important organics management tool available for many rural and small towns. The outreach and education effort has two goals: 1) convincing the public and decision makers to support an organics management program; and 2) to have citizens participate in the program. In the first phase – developing support for the new program and securing the agreement to create it – efforts should focus on decision makers.
Start by defining the importance of improved organics management. Next, outline the specifics of the program and its goals. This will include details on the scope of the program and the costs and benefits in order to provide decision makers with the knowledge they need to act.
Gaining community support for the venture comes next. Citizens may need to be convinced about the need to change their existing organics management behavior. Concerns will need to be addressed and the requested "change" and program requirements explained, along with the costs and benefits to the participants and the community. Public outreach and training are essential to gain support and participation once opportunities are put into place. Education helps to ensure that residents learn about the program, it promotes participation, and provides residents with an understanding of how to manage materials at their home, or how to effectively participate in an organics collection program. The message and outreach will be specific to the program, as will be described in detail under each program topic in this document.
General strategies for creating public awareness are applicable to virtually all education campaigns, however. An effective way to begin is to organize a local or regional "organics summit" that brings together decision makers, businesses, schools, and residents to discuss the benefits of organics management and the options that could work in the community.
Public awareness strategies and outreach programs can incorporate a number of relatively low cost activities, including:
- Speaker's Bureaus and presentations at neighborhood association meetings, schools, and public events
- Public outreach at local fairs and special events
- Printed materials, including newsletters, bill inserts, brochures, and door hangers, and posting resources on town websites and social media pages
- Radio, TV public service announcements and ads
- Press releases and ads placed in local newspapers, and letters to the editor
- A banner on main street is highly effective in rural and small towns
- Neighborhood and school contests to help create program logos, messages, and mascots are effective at getting the word out about new programs and building support
- Interpersonal contact and word of mouth are important communication avenues in rural and small towns
Social marketing has been used to effectively promote waste reduction and recycling to targeted audiences. Applying social marketing techniques for residential organics diversion could include individual visits, neighborhood contests, door-to-door outreach, pledges, and colorful, targeted messages. Similarly, social marketing techniques for local businesses might involve the establishment of business recognition programs, focus group meetings, involvement of restaurant owners, hands-on training efforts, and more.
Social marketing messages are designed to provide consistent information on program expectations, goals, and guidelines; however, the message is targeted to specific audiences. Messages would address perceived barriers to participation, such as the "yuck" factor in composting, providing suggestions and solutions for overcoming concerns.
Funding Policies and Programs
Solid waste disposal "cost awareness" is the first step in providing financial incentives for organics management. Informing decision makers and residents about the actual costs of trash disposal and the potential to reduce costs through organics reduction and diversion can help to gain support for better management practices. Many rural and small town communities continue to pay for solid waste programs through general taxes or property taxes. Often decision makers and residents do not know what landfill disposal or incineration of organics and other wastes is costing the community. Similarly, if private sector hauling services are provided, residents and businesses typically do not know what is included in their service charge.
Differential rates for waste disposal services foster desirable behavior (such as waste reduction and diversion) by providing a financial incentive. Tiered rate programs, called volume-based rates or "pay-as-you-throw" (PAYT), apply a variable rate pricing to customers based on the amount of waste disposed. The more waste disposed, the greater the customer cost, thus encouraging reduction and diversion. These incentive programs offer communities a successful mechanism for both funding and fostering improved organics management.
If residents pay a regular fee for trash disposal, charging less for the disposal of separated organics than for trash or embedding fees for collection of organic materials into the residential trash rates will provide an incentive for residents to separate organics and save money by doing so.
Similarly, if rural areas operate a landfill or transfer station for private hauler dumping, charging a lower "tipping" or disposal fees for discarding organics provides a financial incentive to haulers to provide organics collection services.
Charging sales taxes, surcharges, or special fees (such as licensing fee) on solid waste collection, but not on organics collection is also an available mechanism for rural and small towns to encourage haulers to provide organics collection.
Bans and Mandates
Banning of open burning or at least restricting open burning contributes to more environmentally-sound organics management. Residents and even towns will continue to burn leaves and yard waste unless regulations are in place to restrict or ban burning. Education about management alternatives and benefits can help to achieve compliance with burning bans and help to overcome engrained cultural acceptance of burning.
Banning yard debris from disposal in landfills and incinerators promotes diversion if the ban is successfully enforced and effective education is in place. Disposal bans provide states and regions with a way to effectively draw attention to the benefits of organics diversion and then inform people about their options for organics waste reduction and recycling. Bans work well since most residents, institutions, and even businesses in rural and small town areas at least have some options for managing yard waste through reduction and backyard composting. Promotion of reduction and recycling programs available to residents, institutions, and businesses (including landscapers and gardeners) work in concert with disposal and burning bans for effective compliance and increased organics diversion.
Mandatory regulations require residents and other organics generators to participate in a designated program. Mandatory programs can be effective if a satisfactory organics collection and processing system is in place. However, mandatory requirements do not allow for the flexibility that bans do, as residents may not have the option to fully participate in alternatives, including organics reduction. Mandatory ordinances can be adopted and enforced at the local level, where landfill bans are typically more easily applied at the state or regional jurisdictions.
Food waste disposal bans or mandatory diversion of food scraps, while not currently widely adopted in the U.S., can lead to increased diversion of all organics and could be successfully included in an "organics ban" or "mandatory organics recycling" program.
Regional Cooperation and Private-Sector Incentives
Regional planning and cooperation that unites rural areas, small towns, and regional entities (counties and solid waste districts) can be an important strategy to lower program costs and expand the range of program options available. For example, use of regionally shared mobile processes equipment (e.g., wood/brush grinders) or leases for mobile grinding contractors provides communities with a low cost processing opportunity without the need to invest in equipment.
Another opportunity presented by regional cooperation is to collaborate with private industry to help identify sites for the collection and/or processing of organics, to be owned and operated by the company, or using public land but privately managed. The economy of scale offered by regional collaboration can make siting in your region more attractive.
Additional Support Strategies
Once programs are implemented, data collection and reporting on participation levels, material quantities and quality, environmental benefits and impacts, job creation, and diversion program costs and revenues is essential to track and report back about to decision makers and the public.
Policies and programs that promote the organics management hierarchy—reduce, reuse, and recycle—will prove to be cost effective and most successful in rural and small towns.
Next up — Promoting the Organics Management Hierarchy.
By Athena Lee Bradley
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