The City of San Diego voters approved Measure B on November 8, 2022, amending the People’s Ordinance to remove a long-standing ban that prevented San Diego from charging a fee for city-provided trash, recycling, and organics services, allowing the city to charge a fee for the solid waste collection services it provides for the first time in over 100 years. The passage of Measure B started a multi-year process of confirming eligible customers, undertaking outreach, evaluating current operational conditions, proposing new service levels, and defining cost recovery fees for these services.

One of the first steps was an operational efficiency analysis to identify opportunities for improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness of the city’s collection services. The city wanted a data-driven process to inform technology and process improvements to achieve the Environmental Service Department’s goal of providing first-in-class sustainable collection services. Jennefer Klennert, planning lead, HDR, and Jeremy Bauer, assistant director, San Diego Environmental Services Department, will share the process that was followed to:

• Review more than 150 documents,
• Analyze millions of lines of data,
• Determine current performance indicators,
• Complete more than 87 interviews,
• Conduct over 500 hours of on-site observations including employee meetings, workflows, and deskside and vehicle observations, and
• Benchmark performance.

The seven weeks of on-site observation was followed by a series of three, four-hour workshops with ESD leadership to gain input and agreement on what will be necessary to provide services once Measure B is implemented. This presentation will show how key performance indicators and data analysis were overlaid with people (employees and management at every level of the organization), facilities, and equipment to provide an actionable and realistic view of the current state of the city’s service and potential options for future services under Measure B. Collections and operations, fleet owners and managers, routing and GIS experts, elected official liaisons, management consultants, and those that wear many hats will walk away with new ideas and tools to help their solid waste campaigns succeed.