As Palo Alto’s waste goes abroad, city struggles to track its impact | News

Eager to divert local trash away from landfills, the Palo Alto City Council approved on Monday night a new agreement with the city’s trash hauler that city officials believe will both save money and support their environmental goals.

The agreement also comes with an ethical question mark that is making some local environmentalists uneasy. While the city may have a clear idea about where the garbage is being diverted from, it has far less insight into where it’s going. The trash hauler, GreenWaste Recovery, has been unable to clearly answer that question, despite explicit direction from the council in January 2019 that required the company to track the traveling trash and avoid, to the extent possible, its shipment to nations with less-than-stringent environmental standards.

Despite some reservations, the council voted 6-1, with council member Greg Tanaka dissenting, to approve a new…