San Ramon / ACI (Alameda County Industries) Technical Assistance

Client: City of San Ramon / ACI (Alameda County Industries)
Date: July 2019 - December 2019

Highlights
​√  Technical assistance provided for over 450 accounts (419 COM sites and 43 MFD): over 600 site visits, over 450 phone calls and over 1400 emails sent.
√  Provided trainings to customers required to switch from Waste Management to ACI with higher rates implemented.
√  Assisted customers to come into compliance with a mandatory recycling and organics local ordinance which included simultaneous rate increases.

Background
Alameda County Industries (ACI) engaged Envirolutions Consulting in summer of 2019 to provide commercial (COM) and multi-family residential (MFD) technical assistance for customers in the city of San Ramon. The new franchise agreement between San Ramon and ACI for both residential and commercial began Oct 1, 2019 and ACI contracted with Envirolutions to assist customers during this transition to inform them 1) of their new service provider (former provider was Waste Management) 2) of new required services when applicable and 3) to alert them to the rate increases to be implemented on Jan 1, 2020.
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Challenges
Envirolutions faced several challenges during the course of this project:

• Changes in methodology: finalizing rate structure proved challenging to also getting Service Schedules rolled out, leaving less time to give trainings.
• Account holders dissatisfied by rate changes were offered solutions for reducing their rates by maximizing recycling and organics use since they are offered at a discount over trash. 
• Errant data regarding accounts having recycling services provided Waste Management to Recyclist, the data management technology used by Envirolutions to track all accounts:

​​- Showed accounts that didn’t have recycling services which did through Waste Management; challenge faced to ensure no gap in service was overcome by Waste Management hiring a third party.
- Important accounts that needed extra assistance originally appeared in Recyclist as ‘Do Not Target,’ Envirolutions was able work alongside ACI and provide trainings, attend meetings, while ACI handled the account directly. 
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The flexibility of both ACI and Envirolutions to adjust as necessary to changing circumstances and support each other's efforts through constant communication was a key component of the project’s success. 

Results
Envirolutions accomplished outreach to all target COM and MFD accounts through multiple points of contact including 1495 emails, 462 calls, 185 voicemails, 610 site visits, and 20 trainings over the course of the project. Each site received at least one site visit and was called and/or emailed at a minimum of 3 efforts. 

Envirolutions was able to get all but 44 customers set up with new Service Schedules, or 90.4% of customers brought into compliance with contracts and all requisite services. Among all customers, only 14 remained without recycling service at the end of the project. In other words, 97% of all customers had recycling service. For organics service, only 40 customers were still without organics service in the end, or 91.3% of all sites had organics service by the end of the project. The list of outstanding customers without approved Service Schedules appears later in the report, along with the list of customers lacking recycling service and/or organics service. In total, 166 yards of organics capacity and 1997 yards recycling capacity per week was added, all while reducing trash capacity 96 yards per week.