Seattle trash contractor is asked to take green-energy claim off trucks

SEATTLE – Waste Management is under pressure to remove a green-energy claim plastered on its Seattle garbage-collection trucks after controversy around the fuel used to power its Seattle fleet. The text on its trucks reads, “Breathe Clean, Seattle: Powered by Renewable Natural Gas.”

Seattle City Council members and environmental advocacy groups have argued that WM’s fleet of 92 trucks runs on regular fossil fuel instead of renewable natural gas and emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Earlier this month, Seattle Public Utilities said it will work with WM on a plan to remove the truck banners.

The language printed on the trucks in the city is “vague and could lead to confusion,” Seattle Public Utilities said in an email on Monday, but noted that WM is in compliance with its contract.

Houston-based WM has maintained that it uses allocations of renewable natural gas from other locations for its Seattle fleet, fulfilling its contract with the city.

Since 2019, WM has had a contractual agreement with the city of Seattle to use the Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel standard program to allocate renewable natural gas to its waste-collection trucks.

WM senior area manager Jackie J. Lang said that the company is in compliance with its contract with the city, adding that the biogas production for the Seattle fleet comes from Kentucky, Illinois and Texas.

Renewable natural gas, also known as biogas or RNG, is a carbon-neutral form of gas sourced from organic waste matter and landfills. Companies that source RNG grab the methane emitted from, for example, cow waste, and use it as energy.

WM said it uses technology to vacuum renewable natural gas at landfills and use it to fuel trucks elsewhere.

“When we inject RNG into the pipeline system, we generate credits,” Lang said. “This system allows us to allocate RNG volumes to our fleet as needed – for example, to fulfill our Seattle contract.”

“What WM generates and injects into the pipeline infrastructure is 100% RNG,” Lang said. WM fuels its trucks in South Seattle, she added.

The process of injecting the biogas in the pipeline, she said, “is similar to how electricity is loaded to the power grid for transmission across the country.”

The allocation of RNG happens through a “book-and-claim” process that is similar to depositing $20 in one’s local branch and pulling that same $20 from an ATM in another city, Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas spokesperson Dylan Chase said.

The amount of biogas WM uses contributes to a credit to offset the methane emitted from the Seattle trucks’ fuel while claiming the Seattle trucks are fueled by biogas, said Caleb Heeringa, campaign director for environmental advocacy group Gas Leaks.

WM’s Lang said the Seattle fleet was “fueled through the allocation of RNG,” intended to help the city reach its sustainability goals.

“Over the last decade, we’ve reduced emissions enterprise-wide by 42%, largely by transitioning from diesel to natural gas vehicles,” Lang said.

Seattle City Councilmember Lisa Herbold said in a statement that climate change efforts have to be driven by science. “Misleading information has absolutely no place in the public sphere,” Herbold said. WM trucks, she said, are relying on fracked gas to work.

The “renewable natural gas” banners are misleading because they give people the sense that there is less greenhouse gas in the environment, said Heeringa.

“It leads you to believe that somehow the system is getting cleaner, and that we don’t need to worry about getting off of gas and moving to clean electricity.” Heeringa said. “And that’s not what science says.”