Waste district plans to convert landfill methane into carbon-negative hauling fuel.

A new waste hauler is taking over Peninsula trash next spring. Monterey Regional Waste Management District, already a national model in eco-friendly landfilling, is using the opportunity to go even greener.

GreenWaste Recovery, which beat current hauler Waste Management and several others in a competitive bidding process, is taking over waste collection contracts for seven Peninsula jurisdictions. The four-month rollout begins with Sand City in April, followed by Del Rey Oaks, Seaside, Marina, Carmel, Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove.

MRWMD will lease GreenWaste about 10 acres to park its hauling trucks and refuel them with compressed natural gas (CNG). That CNG will eventually come from the district’s own landfill-to-gas power plant, which captures methane from rotting organic matter like food scraps and paper.

The district is also exploring the feasibility of expanding its anaerobic digester facility, which processes about 5,000 tons of restaurant food waste each year, to produce additional CNG.

“In the near future, the Monterey Peninsula will have a carbon-negative collection fleet,” says Tim Flanagan, the district’s assistant general manager.

The California Air Resources Board considers renewable CNG made from anaerobic digesters “carbon-negative” because it results in an overall reduction of greenhouse gases.

The district’s CNG project also closes a loop on household waste. “It’s going to go from your curb, to the truck, to the landfill and back to the truck, which returns to your curb,” Flanagan says.

MRWMD officials are exploring a partnership on the CNG project with the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency, which processes area sewage into biogas using anaerobic digesters. Flanagan says the decision to site the two agencies side-by-side a half century ago was smart public planning.

“Having these facilities as neighbors makes this activity possible,” he says. “This really is a wonderful synergy.”

The district plans a $15-million-plus expansion and retrofit of its materials recovery facility (MRF, pronounced “merf”), too. The district’s MRF at the Marina landfill currently sorts recyclable debris such as wood and concrete from construction waste. By mid-2016, district managers aim for it to also recover recyclables from trash bins – diverting about two-thirds of the stuff that’s currently being landfilled.

Eventually, district spokesman Jeff Lindenthal says, the district’s MRF might have the capacity to process GreenWaste’s curbside recycling, which currently goes to San Jose.

Another big change is coming to the landfill: MRWMD General Manager William Merry plans to retire in May, after 28 years with the district. In Merry’s tenure, Lindenthal writes by email, “the district has transformed from being primarily a landfill to being a model facility for reducing, reusing, recycling, anaerobic digestion and composting, renewable energy production, and safely disposing of waste.”

District officials are negotiating with two bidders to build the CNG fueling station. The contract heads to the MRWMD board meeting Dec. 19. The district aims to open the facility by May 1.

The project could produce greenhouse gas credits for local cities under AB 32, California’s landmark plan to slow and reverse fossil fuel emissions.