helping material that comes down, so when it goes into the final collection container, they're doing a final quality control sort of that. and that has made the difference. there is a lot of examples where a property has gone from a load aversion rate to a heidi version rate. -- low diversion rate, to high diversion rate. >> i heard if it's a high school, maybe they're high school students that are doing it. >> i think there is an opportunity. janitors are handling the material. there are also other private and nonprofit entities that are at zero waste facilitators. so not every building has a janitorial company that is providing that service. >> president cohen: so do we currently conduct audits? the department of the environment, are you -- >> so recology, we do some, but

they're set up do that. they have a professional auditing staff and they've been ramping up that auditing. this ordinance helps them ramp it up more because we want to see -- do more auditing. recology is also ramping up the -- having -- using their drivers. this works for smaller accounts where the drivers, when they flip open the tote, they can see what is in there. the driver is not going to dig around. you get a snapshot. if you see a problem in the top, you have a problem. that's why having drivers leave the tags, they used to be called love notes. but they're a reminder saying you put the wrong material in. if someone keeps doing that, recology is setting up a system where there will be automatic letters, soft letters, saying we want you to know where materials

should go and we ask you to help keep the materials separate in the right place. it is the law. and if they keep doing it, additional letters will come out and eventually, they could be subject to these different charges. >> and do the truck drivers keep track of worst offenders getting the love notes? once they leave one, is it tracked? >> yeah. the automated system telling you is a new system. they've had drivers out there a long time. they've had drivers tagging. they're trying to make it a more efficient system. because you know, the whole process of working with customers and following up, it's very labor intensive. so we're trying to find a way to step up the whole effort of giving people feedback and helping to comply more. so we're doing all of that. again, this is just one more tool in a really large box of tools we have. that we see that could be

valuable. >> so i have a lot more questions that i want to get through that i need answers to. so my question originally was do we currently conduct audit. you said recology is currently conducting audit. >> that's right. >> president cohen: my question next is, what lrg audits are found to be noncompliant? >> that's what the slide was, showing 77% of trash compacters -- >> president cohen: had over 50%? >> yeah. these are the majority of who are in the large refuse generator definition. it would take a lot more time to get the data for the smaller end of that, but -- >> president cohen: hold on, mr. gray, i feel like i'm getting the information third party, right? supervisor safai, perhaps we can call recology at a later date to come and make a presentation.

>> they're actually here. >> president cohen: they're here, but they may not be prepared to present on this level of detail and this level of questions. i don't know. >> supervisor safai: through the chair, the department of recology work hand in hand. so the questions since we've been working on this since the beginning, department of environment will go back to recology. get the at holders. so they work hand-in-hand. that's the nature of the two. so i would say, i'm absolutely happy to ask them, but i think that recology would then probably defer back to the department of environment. that's their kind of main function in terms of putting data and information together. but i understand your line of questioning, so i think it's important to get to the bottom of it. i do say -- i would say that the question on the time frame from

the snapshot, i think that's definitely a good one. i know that the 80-plus properties using the zero waste facilitators, again, they're constantly getting this information and working hand-in-hand with recology. >> president cohen: ok. so my next question is, how do you work step-by-step on the matter when it comes to audit? when people disagree with their audits, where are the complaints? >> so recology does an audit and they find there is too much contamination. they go through and they look at the material, and they photograph it, they record what is in there, and that information is -- they then contact or call up the account holder and talk to them and say, would you like to see the pictures of all of the stuff? so we'll have quite a few pictures. if it's many different separate containers, they'll be looking

at each one. >> president cohen: how do you determine whether a specific tenant is responsible? >> well, you know, we basically are communicating with the property owner, manager, the contact fort entire building. >> president cohen: meaning the department of environment or recology? >> with both. we work through the property manager and we might go and provide training to tenants. we work through the property manager. through the photographs, you can often identify particular tenant because they'll have something that is branded or something you know they're generating or their name is on something. so you can often identify tenants, but not necessarily all of them. so that information can be gotten through the audit. there is language that is being proposed to be added that specifically help large refuse generators identify those

tenants. >> and so, in the grand scheme of department of the environment, whose job is it to work with recology to work with these audits, to work with the businesses? is it a team of folks? >> yeah. there is a team of us in zero waste. so we're organized by sector. so i'm overseeing the commercial sector. there is a team of us. and we actually, the person on the team, will deal with a range of different customer types. and that is also true, recology has professional staff -- they call it their waste zero staff. and they also work with these customers. so we're in constant communication. >> president cohen: what is the cost of an audit? >> you'll have to ask recology on that. it takes a couple of hours.

>> president cohen: could we get a recology representative? >> there is a cost there that recology -- coh >> president cohen: thank you, i don't want to hear, hearsay, i'm tapping into my inner judge judy. i would like recology to talk about the audits and if you're not the best person, that's fine, we can arrange for another recology person to come. >> thank you, president cohen. you know, actually an audit to do one audit, it takes about 3-4 hours. and then we have to document the audit, so the system behind it to document the photos, analyze what is in the audit to provide a pass or fail or marginal fail. and then from that point on, we take actions and work with the generator or the person that is actually -- the count that is

contaminating. >> president cohen: it takes 3-4 hours to conduct one audit. how much does the audit cost? i'm april assuming this is a cost -- i'm assuming this is a cost that is passed onto the business? >> it's part of the ratepayer infrastructure. >> president cohen: so you can't give me a cost because it's built into the cost of doing business and having recology collect your materials? >> yes, exactly. >> president cohen: ok. if you pay for an additional audit, or you fail an audit and you want be to reaudited, how much does that cost? >> that's a good question. we're talking about this with alex the other day, because generators that fail on audit, they're anxious because they would like to have the discount reinstated. so we were talking about providing them up to three complementary audits within a period of time and if they want to speed up the audit, it will be a cost of probably $200.

we're looking at $100-300, depending on the size. >> president cohen: perfect. thank you. mr. macy -- sorry. i was thinking macy gray, the singer. you can see where my head is at. mr. macy, all right, so we talked a little bit about -- i had questions about public housing, but it looks like we've been able to carve out the smaller housing development sites and that leaves us the larger ones to continue to talk about and figure out. do we know who pays for the recology service to housing authority properties? >> i'm assuming the housing authority pays. >> president cohen: i'm assuming that, too. >> i can confirm that, but that's my understanding.

>> president cohen: supervisor safai, i'm going to pivot to supervisor fewer and see if she has questions. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you, supervisors. so i just -- i'm trying to understand this a little bit, because i think what you've said is that these -- so we have a list of these people who are large generators of waste or something. what are they called? large refuse generators. and this is the list that you just gave us today that has been amended with the new amendments, is that correct? and yet you say a lot of these aren't offenders, that the largest offenders are the construction trades, is that correct? >> well, i would just -- so this is a list of everybody that

meets the definition of that service level. it doesn't mean that they're not doing a good job or out of compliance. >> supervisor fewer: why is it for all these people, when you said that this list actually -- people on the list are -- could possibly not be biggest offenders. so why are we targeting this list instead of the offenders? that's my question. i'm looking at chinese hospital on this list. i'm looking at st. anthony's. i'm looking at -- i get that there is this sweeping kind of criteria you're using, but it's so broad and it's not -- i mean, you're putting them on the list when they may not even be offenders. so i guess that's my concern, too. it's a very sweeping list. i went on the tour of the new recycling center, which is really impressive quite frankly.

if no one has been there, you should go out there, it's pretty cool. but one thing i learned, our trash is really clean. i saw them sorting it all. and now i know myself. i told my husband, that we can't put a single plastic bag into recycling. you have to bundle the bags together, which quite frankly when i told 20 of my friends, they had no idea you do that. but this is an example people don't know how to recycle. so when you say you do a robust program, i'm sorry, i disagree. i know you have a poster contest. someone at my elementary won it. so that's how i know we can put milk cartons in it.

you say they may not be offenders, but we're grouping them all together, that is a problem that i'm grappling with. then when i went to the recycling plant, they told me there that we have really clean recycling. we send a lot of it too vietnam and thailand, and another country i forgot, but we're considered to have clean waste in our recycling. now i'm hearing there is another standard of cleanliness. and i'm wondering -- so all that stuff that i see that gets shipped off almost every day or something, those big bundles, who gets the money from that? so we sell it? city and county gets the money for that? or does recology get the money for that? >> recology gets it, but that's factored into the refuse rate making. we look at the revenue they're getting and that factors into how the rates are calculated. so that's factored in.

so those bales that are shipped out, that's after it goes through the sorting technology process. yes, they're clean in the end to meet the strict standards that need to limit the contamination coming in. so on that list, if somebody is doing a good job, they're not going to have the -- they pass an audit, they're fine. nothing changes for them if they're doing a good job. these are large generators, so when they're not doing a good job, they have a big impact. there is a lot of contaminated material that recology has to deal with. so that's why we're doing a lot of work on c and d and we might do a separate ordinance on that, but this is just dealing with one area to give us a tool. and, yes, we're working with all generators. so being on the list simply means you're a large generator. you might be doing a great job

which is great. we're going to contact everybody and offer any help they need to be doing a great job before they get audited. and only if they can't do a good job, if they fail the audit, does this ordinance impact them. >> supervisor fewer: i guess this sweeping list that you have, i think is really broad. and i think that there are ones that are for profit and there are ones that are nonprofit. and, if they're violators, i can see they didn't pass the audit, i get it. but when you have a sweeping list like this that pertains to all of them, i just think it doesn't get to the issue. for example, how many times are audits done? how often? can you give me that answer? and how many audits do you do? what is the schedule?

>> usually audit is done across the board based on the tagging. so what happened is, the driver goes look at the bins and say that they pass or not. if they have multiple failure, then we say, ok, now this is the time that we need to tag and audit and look at the trash. >> supervisor fewer: so how many audits do you do? what is your schedule? do you do 100 a week? 50? how many do you do? >> we have done -- do you know? 500. >> i think there has been on the order of 2500 audits done. >> how many? >> i would say 5 hundred -- each day we can do four audits. >> supervisor fewer: so each day you do four audits?

ok. and these are for the large refuse generators and this audit is for large refuse generators, not for residential homeowners? >> that's correct. >> supervisor fewer: my question is, we're finding 60% is still recyclable or compostable, is this that number that you gave me, is that just for large refuse generators or is that for total gorge collection? >> total material generation. so that could mean residential homeowners, is that correct? >> well, we don't typically do any residential single family home residents. >> supervisor fewer: how could you? i get that. but i think what i'm asking you, mr. macy, is that you said 60% is still recyclable and compostable.

and we are talking about large refuge generators, but that number you gave me, that is all the garbage that comes in, right? ok. so what percentage i think of the 60% recyclable, how does the large refuse generators relate to the residential pickups? are we finding that the large refuse generators are the ones that are not recycling well? if we split them into two groups, the large refuse and the residential pickups, are we seeing more violators of contamination with the residential pickups or with the large refuse generators? >> so where you have a large generator that is doing badly, they can be doing really badly.

as overall sector, i don't think there is a big statistical difference, but again, large generators equal to many hundreds of homes. so it's like you get one big bang buck at one location. so it's sort of the impact of that one location. >> supervisor fewer: i think what you're telling me then, the large refuse generators also include many individual units of housing. and so they also represent regular folks like you and i dumping our garbage or recycling. but i think my question is, in relation to our zero waste goals -- because this is what it's all about -- getting to our zero waste goals. when we look at the individual residential pickup, in comparison to the large refuse generators, are we seeing about the same amount of contamination? or are we seeing more

contamination, cross-contamination within these large refuse generators. >> residential, it's definitely -- we see more contamination with the large multiple family buildings. so this captures the largest of those, less than 100, many hundreds of units. and we see there is more of a problem there. that's why the case study that i showed you, and there are many other examples of zero waste facilitators working in these large multifamily buildings, really making a difference. >> i want to do a clarification. the reason why we have looked at this is because we actually know who the customer is. so when you have a large compacter we know who the customer is. if you have small businesses or single residential, we pick up

your trash and one truck will pick up 500 accounts, so it's difficult to pinpoint who is the generator is and who is contaminating the material. >> supervisor fewer: but is the driver that tags it? and it is the driver that actually is the one in residential homes looking at the garbage. >> i think the point made is important. because the driver, you know, they're moving fast. they can look at the top of the bin quickly. if they see on the top of the bin, again, we're just looking at the top of the bin, they'll leave a tag. but when you have a compacter that is picked up separately and we spread it out on the floor, pick through it and photograph it, we're able it look at the whole load in detail. where if you did that with a truckload, you wouldn't know which of the hundreds of different residential properties and businesses that were put into the truck. and the driver can -- the driver

can't dump it on the sidewalk and sort through it. >> supervisor fewer: i get that. >> so this allows us to do a deeper dive for these kinds of account. we can't do the smaller ones picked up by trucks. >> supervisor fewer: i'm trying to get my mind wrapped around how we're going to meet our zero waste goals, because it is not just the large refuse generators, it is a whole combination of everybody working together to make zero waste world. can you tell me how much money is generated, revenue is generated to recology when you sell the recycled items? annually? what is that annual amount of money that recology collects when they sell the recycled, clean high-grade paper and plastic?

>> well, i don't think we have that. it's a small percent. so the amount that they get for all the recyclables is a small fraction of what it costs to operate that facility. it sorts it. plus you have the cost to collect it. so it is factored into the revenues when we calculate the rates, but it's a small percent. you know, that being said, recology is committed to marketing all their material and with the challenging markets we have, they need to do as good a job as they can. >> i like recology. i think they're great partners. i just think my question was, i didn't have an idea of how much money is actually generated through this. because what we're trying to get to, correct me if i'm wrong, i'm a newbie to this, we're trying to get to our zero waste goals, right? this is one way of doing it. education is another piece.

reminding everyone they have a responsibility to sort. and to teach them how to sort. and actually be culturally sensitive to people that are not used to recycling or come from countries that don't have recycling or consciousness of it. and to make sure there are enough opportunities for them to do it. and then here, with this is also to actually legislate something that will require them to hire somebody to assist them to do this. is that correct? >> that's correct. you're spot on. >> supervisor fewer: you mention there are nine zero waste facilita facilitators. >> different companies. >> supervisor fewer: when you search it, it says nothing found. on your website. >> when you search our website? >> yes, when you search your

website and say search zero waste facilitator, your search yielded no results. >> ok, we'll correct that. >> supervisor fewer: because i think it starts with the department of environment giving information and resources to people, because that's naturally where they would go first. thank you very much. >> president cohen: department of environment. did you reach out to us to prep the committee members before this hearing? looks like charles is going to say yes. >> yes, we did, contacted all three of our offices. kitler, rueben stein and gallagher. we did that in the past 2-3 days. >> i'm going to move on to allow the port an opportunity to present some ideas because i'm interested in hearing their concerns. they're affected by the legislation and i'd like to hear your thoughts in terms of

amendments. >> good afternoon. president cohen, committee members, supervisor safai. brad benson. director of the port. appreciate the opportunity to speak today. really appreciate supervisor safai's leadership in trying to dress the issue. -- address the issue. it's a challenging problem. we have at the ports long experience working with the department of the environment. we worked with them during the america's cup to do a zero waste event policy. and a zero waste plan for the america's cup, so they have talented staff. we worked with the department of the environment to try and identify the port tenants that would be subject to the proposed ordinance. if i could just put this up. so we have about 16 large

generators on port properties. these are not offenders. we've got the giant heard testimony earlier, they're doing a great job with their sorting efforts. but we do have a broad range of tenants at the port that would be subject to the ordinance, including the port itself. we have two of these compacters. we've done outreach to the tenants to let them know about the proposed ordinance and we're just starting to get feedback from folks. we had two suggestions we wanted to share with the committee for your considerations. and i want to preface the suggestions by saying this is not our area of expertise. this officexpertise is really t department of environment. recology. but we had two proposals. one is a public policy question and it's arising from think

being our restaurants included on the list. if they fail an audit, is sorting the right remedy for this waste stream that is a very wet waste stream? primarily a food waste stream. we're wondering if it wouldn't be better to give the director of the department of environment the ability to impose a different enforcement action for certain unique generators? is sorting the right answer? maybe switching to compostable food wear is the right answer. we don't know. but we think that flexibility may be a good thing in the ordinance. and the second issue is a smaller issue. but along the port, we have areas that are dedicated public access. these are outdoor areas predominantly around the giants'

ballpark, around pier 39. we have areas where it's recorded against the property that this is public access. the ordinance the way it's crafted today already exempt city cans in the public right-of-way. so these are cans primarily along sidewalks. it happens for the fort and city-wide. -- port and city-wide. they're exempted from the requirement, which we think is appropriate, because this is a really mixed stream. so we would suggest adding to the definition of public trash container any of these public containers in dedicated public access areas along the port, whether or not they're collected by a public agency. because we think they're like city cans. so those are our two proposals for you to consider. we know you have a lot more on your plate than just the port concern, but i'm available to answer any questions that you may have. >> president cohen: thank you, good to hear your voice and get you on the record here.

i'd like to pivot to the budget legislative analyst and hear the report from their office and then we'll take public comment. >> our report reflects what mr. macy said in his presentation. i do want to point out page 36 of our report that lists 15 city-owned properties that would come under the ordinance. my understanding from the presentation we just had, with the proposed amendments, these 15 properties would be the ones that would be covered by the ordinance. we don't have specific estimates of the cost. we do understand that if a city department were to fail an audit, they'd have to hire 1-2 facilitators. our estimated cost of one facilitator working full-time would be $83,000. the actual cost to the city would depend on which department required hiring facilitators.

we consider approval to be a policy matter. >> president cohen: i understand we have a representative from the mayor's office of housing. >> good morning. thank you for the opportunity to supreme about this. the sfmta has been taking steps to improve our performance in terms of being a large generator at some of our facilities. we've had a video made regarding zero waste management and the video is being shown in the transit rooms and to all new employees that join the sfmta. during their new employee orientation. we also are working with transit management and staff to train divisions on waste management, because there are about 30 facilities, by the way, a couple

of them are more than 100 years old. just in case we're having a contest about ages of facilities. and another one is more than 68 years old. we're glad to hear about the nine different companies that provide services in this area. and then we also do have large compacters that five of our current facilities, and we're purchasing another one for a sixth facility. so we look forward to working with the department of the environment. and recology. on sfmta's more than 30 large facilities. and also on some legislative amendments that we will propose through supervisor safai's office. >> president cohen: thank you, i want to recognize the mayor's office of housing also. >> hi, amy chen.

so on behalf of our office, we share supervisor safai's goals around zero waste and the environment's work on the zero waste goals as well, but we have concerns about the cost implications for the affordable housing projects that do meet the 40 cubic yard threshold and would be required to hire the zero waste facilitator should they fail an audit. we would like the projects to have cost savings, but we're not sure about the cost and how they would work out, given having heard from our affordable housing developers that they would likely need to hire a full-time staff person to play the role, or have a level of services from a third party vendor. so there is uncertainty around what the cost would be. and we would like to continue the conversation with your

offices and just for us to understand better about what that would be. >> president cohen: totally agree with you. >> and if there was to were assistance, that would be much appreciated. as you all know, the cost of operating and maintaining affordable housing is high and we want to serve our residents. we want to make sure that our residents are served, but the rents collected from affordable housing is also limited. so that is going to be a challenge we anticipate our developers will be facing. >> president cohen: thank you very much. all right, ladies and gentlemen, let's go ahead and hear public comment. it's open at this time. there will be two minutes for each person. we'll start with you, mr. cohen and then a card from drew, charles. anyone else, please line up. >> thank you, supervisors.

peter cohn with the council of community housing, i want to reinforce what you heard from amy chen. of the 480 or so properties that this legislation would apply to, that the department's information was that 97 are apartment buildings. of those, 10 are affordable housing sites. so we're talking about a fairly narrow universe of projects serving populations. to reiterate mayor office of housing suggestions, the key is to have the funding to support the change in operations and the change in education that is necessary in working in these sites. that is the ask. if it was a grant program for that first three-year period to the first audit, that at least allows those operators to figure out, a, how to pay for the fa till sittary cost in the future and do the onsite education and change of behavior with the resident population.

the theory might work nice, this is going pay for itself, but the first 2-3 years getting to the reality means the dime is on those operators. they don't have the money. these are publicly funded sites. supervisor cohen, you nailed it. these are, if you will, vulnerable populations and sites are already difficult. there are two in your district. there is jamestown and sunnydale. there are six in district 5 in the western addition. it's important to point out, we have three of our member organizations that property manage, but several of these sites are co-ops, self-governed and very vulnerable to these additional costs. you have to think about who is actually being saddled with this responsibility and how to help them succeed. thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello, good afternoon. i'm with the building owners and

managers association in san francisco. we represent the skyline of san francisco, the owners of the buildings outside of residential. so primarily the commercial and retail outlets that you see. i want to thank chair cohen and supervisor safai and his staff specifically for meeting with the business community many times over the last few months. it's been appreciated. thank you. i know you are busy, so it is very much appreciated. unfortunately, the amendments that we have suggested, i believe, and i heard a few today, i need to review the latest draft, have not really been considered. we want to work with the city to get to waste zero, but we feel that supervisor safai's ordinance as drafted -- and again not recognizing the amendments brought up today -- is myopic in its view. mandating a two-year hire is a costly option to get to waste zero and in some cases is not as effective as educating the true waste facilitators -- us.

and tenants and employees in our member buildings. this focuses on the end instead of the beginning. so in fact, we're all zero waste facilitators. the city has a great department and they do a nice job educating all large refuse generators and their constituencies. utilizing them, instead of mandating a zero waste facilitator could save taxpayer dollars. please engage this department. find out what works first before you mandate the hire of a zero waste facilitator. some use them. some are effective, some are not. but we allow them the flexibility. in closing, we feel the ordinance needs to be amended to allow that all stakeholders and the city have their needs addressed appropriately. thank you.

>> president cohen: thank you. next speaker, please. dee dee and then drew. marcy. charles. >> thank you. good afternoon. working for the san francisco chamber of commerce. the chamber and our partners are supportive of everyone working toward zero waste. we do it diligently. and we really appreciate the supervisor's efforts in that regard. we appreciate some of the amendments that we're hearing for the first time today. we feel like for some of us it's going to the right direction, but still overall, this ordinance is like one size fits all set of rules that applies to many, many different industries that have little, if anything in common with each other. they generate different types of

wastes. different sources. managed by different systems. under different regulatory frame works. even with the changes, i think some of the small businesses are going to fall under this ordinance and i'm particularly worried about this. certain restaurants will have to comply. i'm worried about the produce market and the flower mart. the wholesale produce market as you know started the composting pilot program with the city 20 years ago. so they work diligently to separate their refuse as does the flower mart. and the produce market is a nonprofit, but if they should fail an audit, they're going to be required to hire a waste facilitator. i'm not sure whether it's full-time or part-time, but if it's part-time and a waste facilitator, then i don't see how that would work if you have

a full-time staff person and you want to give them additional hours, i don't think you could do that if they would have to be exclusively waste facilitators. we think that is expensive and probably not feasible for small businesses and non-profits in many cases. and may not be the right way to go to make sure they're separating their [bell ringing]. >> thank you, next. >> good afternoon. representing bio com. it's a california based life sciences trade association representing over 1100 members statewide. we're fairly new to san francisco as far as attending meetings. but we did have concerns about the bill. we support the idea, we support the concept of zero waste, however we thought the scope was a bit broad. we feel it will implicate a number of industries not related

to one another. life sciences in particular, who are subject to strict waste, refuse and separation policies, be it materials, bio waste, hazardous waste, all that stuff. most life science companies have an i.d. number, meaning they track their waste from cradle to grave. by again is expansive. we don't think that hiring an additional zero waste facilitator will help the situation. frankly, most of these companies also here an environmental health and safety professional full-time anyway. so we think there is a redo redundantsy issue. thank you very much. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. supervisors and chair cohen. i'm the general manager of

recology golden gate. i spoke at length about this proposed legislation when it was heard at the previous committee meeting. in the interest of time, i will not repeat those comments. >> which committee meeting in >> it was heard in land use. >> i have a copy of the notes and i'll share that. today, i'm speaking to express my thanks to supervisor safai and his office for meeting with and listening to the concerns of the stakeholders, including recology. that will be affected by this legislation. with the amendment to date, we're confident we'll now be able to perform the mandated audit time line. this legislation identifies a single tragedy that works for some large generators. other strategies like increased education and infrastructure changes are more effective for other customers.

we will be supportive of amendments that will allow the director of the environment to have greater discretion and flexibility to prescribe the appropriate strategy for each situation. we want to thank and acknowledge supervisor safai and his staff for the hard work and diligence on this issue. thank you for your time and attention. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon. kelly powers with the hotel council of san francisco. pleasure to be here today and speak on this matter. we entirely support the effort and the intent behind this legislation with supervisor safai's recommendation, however a couple of concerns. you know, the hotels have been at the forefront of the zero waste goals with many properties having a achieved and maintained significant diversion rates. we have many examples of hotels whose leaders have demonstrated their long-term commitment to

sustainability and zero waste goals. in fact, we work closely with recology and the department of environment. we have a sustainability committee five years going with the hotel council and work on programs called stay green, that look at all aspects of the hotel industry, including waste and how we can be more sustainable as operators. we understand the importance of disposing refuse properly, so that the compostable and recyclable waste that may be marketable does not end up in the landfill. we believe that refuse separation compliance should focus on education and outreach, to ensure that the entity or the individual is aware of their lack of compliance and is instructed on how to comply and given time, opportunity, and incentive to do so before penalties are assessed and accrued. thank you. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon.

i'm with the gold gate restaurant association here. thank you for your time today. we are very supportive of the zero waste goals. we don't see the legislation as the best way to get to it. as we appreciate the amendments that could exclude our restaurants, we feel that most of them will not. they're facing ex- -- such a shortage in labor and we're desperate to hire people. this is not feasible for many of our restaurants. as they operate a small businesses, their margins are incredibly tight and this seems like an extra exclusiveness of this role, it's a hardship for our restaurant. we have a strong relationship with recology. at the end of the day, we don't want to pay fines. we work with recology to make sure contamination is not an issue and to work through the process and improve it.

we really would love to hear more that you all have for these amendments and proposal. we hope to continue to have a relationship and ongoing conversation. thank you. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, secretary treasurer, local 350. we represent all of the union recology workers in san francisco. i wish i had more time, because i could answer a lot of the questions that you were asking earlier. so maybe i'll follow-up. >> individually, you can. >> zero waste, if the city is serious about zero waste it requires participation at multiple levels. the refuse that you see at pier 96 is clean because it's already gone through the sorting process at some level and then it's sorted through again by our members. for this to really work, that's what needs to happen at the large refuse generators.

you need someone sorting before it goes into the compacter. it goes to sanitariy fill and pushed into the trucks to go to landfill. so whatever recyclables in that compacter are never seen. and the drivers can't open it on site to see what is in it. it takes buy-in from all customers. san francisco residents are held accountable for their recycling levels. their containers get left behind if they don't comply. i think the same thing should apply to the large generators at the commercial level. because everybody should be held accountable. and the important thing here is education is a major piece to this. but for education to work you need buy-in. and the reason why your

residents buy in, they want to make sure their garbage and recycling gets picked up. the large generators are more than willing to spend the fees rather than better diversion. we'd be happy to follow up with you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> hello. i'm with the local 87. as we listen to the report from the gentleman from the labor front department of environment, it is now approximate tut yes means we will have a clean and safe. also, there will be a job for those people who are trying to get out of the public assistance. and as a unit officer, i would

like you to vote yes in this city ordinance. thank you. >> next speaker. good afternoon. i'm the president of the local 87. i'm also a secretary treasurer for the san francisco labor council. i want to start out by thanking supervisor safai and the committee of course, supervisor fewer, chair person and board president cohen and i would like to thank supervisor stefani. i want to start out by saying that it's been ten years. and i'm not surprised by the feedback and the responses and position from bouma, the hotel and restaurant association, and i just want to be able to tell you, when this legislation started ten years ago, the workers who were doing the job were never mentioned in the original piece of legislation ten years ago. we were completely invisible and

left out of the conversation. and after ten years now we actually feel like we're serious stakeholders and that the work that is being done by the folks is actually being taken into consideration. this legislation is important to us for our goals as a county. the legislation includes best practices and aggressive plan to reach those goals. bouma is a zero waste facilitat facilitator. there is lot of them in april when they're handing out lead awards for platinum, gold and bronze, but the rest of the 11 months of the year, everybody, it's like sending a text message with a smiley face on it. sf homeowners are very strict about what they have to do, whereas commercial building owners, the language is loose how much they are committed. i want to thank you, supervisor

fewer, for honing in on the education component because when our janitors told tenants in the building they contaminated the trash, all the workers have been met with is disciplinary action. it takes -- [bell ringing] >> thank you. thank you. thank you. >> i was wondering if the public was picking up the cost of capital improvement through the recent jump in garbage collection rates a year or two ago. also curious what are the most profitable segments within the refuse market. dirt, plastic, garbage, glass, cement, metal and where do they place the emphasis? is there ever a divergence

between profit on segments across the market due to margin of return? >> my name is francis. the director of environmental justice. i've been involved with the recycling for over 40 years. and i've been listening inat any timely to the speakers. intently to the speaker. as you know, one of the main elements is education. and it has been spoken in general terms, but we need to bring it down to the level of what i call diversity, which means catering to those who are responsible at both ends not

only the beginning, but the end, in various languages. because this helps in the education. so a lot of what we heard today is about information. let me state very clearly that the best information is education. now, i don't know how deep the department of environment is involved with this. but i've followed the department of environment from its beginning, which really started in district 10 and one of the power plants was shut down. monies were satisfied. and the department of environment was created. and so, this is a debate or

deliberation that has to be tweaked. and that's what i have to say. thank you very much. >> are there any other members of the public that would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor safai? >> supervisor safai: i have some last thoughts. i want to thank the committee for really taking the time to ask some really thoughtful questions today. i know that this is not easy. some of this is something that i have firsthand experience with because i worked in the industry. so i know it intimately from having been on the front lines and been involved with the stakeholders today. i worked with mr. jack macy ten years ago when the original legislation was drafted. and those in the industry. so my perspective on this is a little bit different, but the questions here today were really spot on. i think they were very

insightful and helped move the conversation forward. i will just say that we can continue to refine the information, but i think the case was made well by the department of environment. i think it's clear and i want to thank also the recology for pinpointing a very strong distinction between residential homeowners and large account holders. 40 cubic yards is the equivalent of hundreds of small properties. so i can't ask for an audit of my trash. i can look next door and see the neighbor putting all their trash into their recycling bin now because their trash bin is now tiny. and i actually went and met with many of the drivers as these changes have been implemented and talked to them about what their experiences are on the

front line now. how their experiences have changed since these adjustments have been made, because a lot of people are putting more composting and trash into different places than they would have before. so there is an education component that is happening on the front lines. with these situations, the ability to have one building that is producing 90 cubic yards, that's the equivalent of hundreds of homes. we have the ability to take those compacters, go back to recology, at no cost, no additional cost to the current account holder, look at a snapshot of where they are and say this person is doing a good job. so, supervisor fewer, just because you're on the list, does not mean you're doing a good job. in fact, many of them are. but for those who aren't, they have built into their cost of doing business just paying additional fees.

they're not interested in or moving forward aggressively or participating in diverting trash. and so we know from, again, from the department of environment's cases and we can get you even more refined information, that we have examples of having a zero waste facilitator works and how it is effective and how it helps significantly to divert waste. i'd like to talk about some of the amendments. i hope the committee can accept some of the amendments today. they're all substantive. so this will force the conversation can be continued. i'd like to make a motion to accept those amendments today. i can talk about them in general terms? deputy city attorney. so first, we're going to replace throughout the legislation the word waste diversion with material recovery. that was a request of the department of environment. we're going to replace the word

diversion to recovery. we're going to replace zero-waste, to zero waste without a hyphen. i think that is really important. [laughter] just kidding. that is a request being made. on page 2, lines 14-16, we're changing the order of the talking about the three streams of recyclables, compostables and trash designated for landfill. we moved some of the wording around. page 3, 19-22, where we talk about the audit and what that means, we've added which may be conducted through the analysis of representative samples. so we're talking about the type of audit and what representative samples those are. we're changing in the definition of the word large refuse generator, we're taking out