New Haven Independent

Posted by: Darnell | November 6, 2009 11:59 AM

I like the idea of recycling more, we do a lot of that in our household, my 7 yr old daughter is the champ. I would oppose adding another position to the already bloated city budget for a recycling "czar". Instead, use existing resources to do so.

Posted by: what | November 6, 2009 12:01 PM

All you Lemar Roland fans, your guys is showing his true "green" colors. He is as "tax and spend" as our current mayor, he wants to "green" the city by taking more of my "green" dollars. DO NOT add anymore positions to this already bloated city budget.

Posted by: Nan Bartow | November 6, 2009 12:07 PM

Hooray for New Haven and the alders who sponsored and approved this important recycling measure.

Posted by: anon | November 6, 2009 12:12 PM

This is a horrible idea, people are just going to end up throwing trash in their recycling bins. If you go to any public place (say, the train station) where there's receptacles for bottles only, you still see people throwing trash in the recycling bin, and bottles in the trash. People are freaking STUPID if they can't manage to do that right, and you're expecting them to do the right thing at home too? I firmly expect household trash, baggies of dog crap, and whatever else to end up in these bins, especially if they're just repurposing the existing trash bins.

In terms of size, too, not sure this makes sense. I live in a 2 person apartment, and though we recycle plastic, glass, newspaper, misc. paper, and magazines, we still only fill up the blue bin once every couple weeks. Sure once in a while we go over, but I think it would take months to fill up a 96 gallon bin.

Posted by: jawbone | November 6, 2009 12:23 PM

OK...how do individual tenants of multi-family houses and apartment buildings keep track of their individual 'points' with the Recyclebank? Is each individual unit issued a 96 gallon toter with their own unique RF tag?
There ought to be a 'take back' program for all the damn 96gallon toters people are storing in their basements. Remember when these things were issued a couple of years ago, many more were given out than actually used. I've got a couple in my basement that I would love to give back. Now were going to get even more, smaller, toters. Thats a lot of blue plastic! I want a $15 gift card from Shaw's for simply recycling my heavy plastic, unused 96 galloners.
Thats called meta-recycling, people. Recycle the recycling bins!

Posted by: DR | November 6, 2009 12:47 PM

It's about time!

Single stream recycling is the way to go. If more plastics can be added to the mix we'll be even better off.

Posted by: streever | November 6, 2009 1:17 PM

What:
His name is Roland Lemar, and I hope he "tax and spend": It's a lot better than just taxing or just spending.

I know it's an unpopular position but taxation with representation is a cornerstone of our civilization. I hope the government wisely spends that money, as Lemar is pledging.

This is how an effective alder works: confirming the good work to date, and asking for more. Thanks Roland.

Posted by: jawbone | November 6, 2009 1:50 PM

Brian McGrath for recycling czar. The city already pays him mucho $$$ in retirement...

Posted by: Rob Smuts | November 6, 2009 1:56 PM

Couple quick points:
- If you don't need as many blue bins as your building has, we will gladly take them back. Call 946-7700 to arrange a pick-up. You can work out with your neighbors how to split the rewards. All the blue bins will have the address and unit number put on them, so that's how to keep them straight in multi-unit structures.
- We will have challenges with educating people what goes in the recycling bin. As Ald Lemar said, we will have hiccups in the roll-out - but cities around the country have figured it out, and we certainly can too.
- I remain skeptical about adding a general fund position to focus on recycling. My preference is to utilize existing staff and find grants for any expanded capacity. I won't rule out a general fund position, however - the City saves so much money with higher recycling rates that it could be a tax-saver. I just want to see if we can achieve the higher recycling rates with last night's changes before we determine whether another position is necessary. If a position is necessary to achieve a high rate and the resulting savings, that's fine (it will still be a win for taxpayers), but if we can hit our numbers without another position, all the better.

My thanks to John Prokop, Director of DPW, for negotiating such a great contract for the City. He's already saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars through changes he's made to our waste stream, and this contract should add significantly to those savings.

- Rob Smuts, Chief Administrative Officer

Posted by: Bill | November 6, 2009 2:13 PM

How long will it take folks to figure out that if they fill their recyclables with water they will get more points.

Posted by: robn | November 6, 2009 3:18 PM

If we recycled all of the naysayers, we could make tons and tons of soylent green ..then none of us would go hungry.

Posted by: hmmm | November 6, 2009 4:01 PM

And how do we keep scavengers from rummaging through our recycling and helping themselves? I never minded it before, but now we'll be losing out on rewards unless we keep the recyclables under lock and key all week long.

Posted by: jawbone | November 6, 2009 4:14 PM

Hey Robn, I'm gonna get Andy Griffith to make my 96 galloner into a 'Salvage 1' style moon rocket. C'mon, lets get off of this rock!

Posted by: what | November 6, 2009 4:27 PM

Robn - LOL. I love you, I think.

...

Posted by: V | November 6, 2009 6:56 PM

Sounds like a great idea.

What happens to people who load their bin with trash? Anything?

And what about cardboard? My biggest peeves with NH public works have been about cardboard "pickup." Or should I call it, "ignore it until the taxpayer throws it in the trash bin"?

Posted by: JB | November 6, 2009 11:18 PM

I laughed a little when I read this story.

My recycle bin (and all my neighbors) is nearly emptied every week before the official truck comes-- by people who recycle for money. Same with bulk trash pick up. There's a thriving 3rd world economy in New Haven.

I don't care terribly much about getting discounts at local stores, but if I did, I'd throw a few rocks in the bin after the can guys come by and voila! Everyone's happy.

New Haven is the strangest place.

Posted by: Leslie Blatteau | November 7, 2009 8:02 AM

cant wait to start earning points. hmmmm: that guy might need it more than you so i wouldnt worry about it too much. we dont really recycle for the points, as nice as it is; we recycle to make less trash. mr. smuts: what about school recycling? the new haven public school where i work does not have in-house recycling. if teachers choose to take it on, we have to bring it home or bring it to the transfer station ourselves.

Posted by: mrs.dwight | November 7, 2009 8:54 AM

This is at least 5 steps in the right direction!

Thanks to Smuts for commenting, too. Where can I learn more about the plans for multi-unit and apartment buildings? I live in a 20+ unit apartment building. Will I really get my own recycle bin with a chip in it?

Posted by: Paul Garlinghouse | November 7, 2009 9:42 AM

Posted by: Bill | November 6, 2009 2:13 PM

How long will it take folks to figure out that if they fill their recyclables with water they will get more points.

A good point, what is the plan for monitoring what is in the 96 gallon bins? Will people still get points if their 96 gallon bin in full of trash or water?

Posted by: Melissa | November 7, 2009 10:47 AM

How will this work for people in apartment buildings? Will every individual get their own bin? Or will the owners of our buildings, who don't live here, rather than the residents doing the recycling get the credit for the recycling and thus the discounts?

Posted by: Westville Mom | November 7, 2009 11:25 AM

There would have been a lot more recycling if the rules hadn't been so rigid. Recycling was badly designed from the beginning. I've already had bright warning stickers put on my stuff twice because the cardboard wasn't cut to the right size and the plastic milk bottle wasn't crushed! Cardboard recycling, especially, is a nightmare...and I'm one of the people who tries hard to recycle everything. This new system will only encourage theft. On top of that, it will take us 2 or 3 months to fill a 96 gal. barrel. And, I don't WANT more ugly blue barrels in my backyard! Thank you, Recycling Nazis! Maybe the "New Haven Master Recyclers" should be re-named the "New Haven Recycling Masters." More intrusion into our private lives in the name of "progress." New Haven is obviously desperate for more money--try lowering taxes for businesses to encourage more of them to re-locate here. Seems to work everywhere it's tried.

Posted by: Pedro | November 7, 2009 3:05 PM

Wow, Westville Mom, you kind of started out in one direction and ended up flying off into la-la land.

The new system makes it dead simple to recycle. Dump all of your recyclables in one bin! How is this going to encourage theft? If anything the deep bins are going to make it a ton harder to take anything out of the bins!

And I'm pretty sure that no matter how full your bin is, they'll take whatever is in it. You're not waiting until your blue bin is full now, are you?

It seems pretty simple. Blue bin goes away, Blue trash bin stays and becomes recycling bin, and 45 gallon trash bin shows up. It's not that different from before when we had our own trash cans.

You are saying that this is an intrusion into your private life... how exactly? If you claim to try to be the paragon recycler you say you are, this is only going to make it easier. If you recycle a bunch of stuff, they send you a coupon in the mail.

Posted by: Morris Cove Mom | November 7, 2009 5:37 PM

"There will be a provision for households that need more room for trash, Smuts said."

Wait, what? I was with him until he said that! Isn't that like saying you are now expected to reduce and recycle...unless you don't really want to?

I see 2-people households produce more trash than 6-people households. Recycling and composting go a long way, so we do those religiously. But reducing your material intake and buying is what really matters.

Posted by: David | November 7, 2009 9:52 PM

Be sure to offer the same option to landlords. The owners of multi unit buildings can really help with this plan. Rewards and conservation going hand in hand are productive. Including this group can add an amount 100 home owners could not match.

Posted by: Willow St | November 8, 2009 12:15 AM

We've had problems on my block with roll-out toters being stolen repeatedly over the past year. You can chip it, you can tag it, you can put serial numbers on it, you can paint giant numbers on it - the bins won't stay associated with their homes, in part due to people just taking them from your backyard, and in part thanks to New Haven's trash pickup people, who don't show any regard for putting things back in the driveway where they found them. Calls to public works to try to get more toters for my four-apartment building (we were down to 2, and multiple apartments were having mulitple resident turnover in the next month) led to instructions to call the police to report the bins stolen. We did that, called Public Works with the police report numbers...and nada. I can't imagine how a branch of government that couldn't get me even one more bin is going to roll out a new system to the whole city.

Posted by: qRiver Res | November 8, 2009 8:03 PM

Can we please have some "Elm City Green" containers instead of these fluorescent blue eyesores!

Posted by: Westville Mom | November 9, 2009 11:12 AM

Pedro--I guess I'm saying that if the recycling program had been done better in the first place, we wouldn't be needing this system now. The rigid rules made it too hard for many people to comply (i.e. the rules created a disincentive.) So now we are forced to have TWO exceptionally UGLY blue barrels (or in our case, probably THREE) intruding into our personal garden space when we could have left well enough alone, if recycling had been easier.[more rules=less freedom]
Besides, my guess is that the biggest obstacle to recycling compliance in this particular city is actually ignorance and poor education. Why do you think people who throw their trash out of car windows will trot the extra steps out to the blue barrel when they know someone else will come along in the middle of the night to steal the fruits of their labor?
Now THERE'S a disheartening Dickensian scenario to contemplate: scores of unfortunate, desperate souls scavenging for cans and bottles in the gloom of the wee hours to cash in on yet another misguided government scheme. Reminds me of what I have dubbed the "Celine Dion Theory of Economics"--as exemplified by her view of Hurricane Katrina blue-jean LOOTERS, when she said: "So what?! Just let them touch these things! Let them touch them, just once!"
So Pedro, your (and others') nonchalant acceptance of a plan that ENCOURAGES scavenging by human beings is, shall we say?, "troubling"---in the least.

Posted by: stylene | November 9, 2009 11:41 AM

@jawbone- very good point!!! I live in a 3 family house in the westville area of new haven.

Posted by: steve ross, human | November 9, 2009 12:54 PM

When this idea was initially brought up, I seem to remember some talk of penalties for mixing non-recyclables into the recycling bins; any update on this or has the idea been properly trashed?

Posted by: Bill Saunders | November 9, 2009 7:39 PM

Should we be monetarily rewarding people who recycle 'more' or would it be a better idea to use 'that money' to lobby for greener, simpler packaging, and reward local businesses that carry such items.

Afterall, less is more.

Posted by: blue dog dem | November 9, 2009 8:18 PM

"The New Haven Solid Waste Authority currently pays $76.50 per ton to have its garbage removed. Since recyclables are a commodity, the authority misses out on $28 of potential revenue for every ton of recyclables thrown away as garbage. That means every new ton of recyclables diverted from the garbage represents a total value of $104.50.

During the first five years of its contract with RecycleBank, the city will pay the company $70.40 for each ton recycled over the current average of 4,500 tons per year. That leaves $34.10 per ton, added back into the city budget."

Can someone please explain this math to me? If the city currently pays $76.50 and in the future will pay $70.40, that is a savings of $6.10 per ton or $27,450 per year (based on 4,500 tons stated above). You cannot claim to have a $28 per ton benefit if it is unrealized now and will not benefit you in the future. How is transferring the benefit to the new company putting money in our coffers? Is the City then going to get $28 per ton from RecycleBank, or is this just more fuzzy math? This is similar to me throwing out my deposit bottles and someone else taking them and cashing them in. I was never 5 cents richer in actuality even though they were in my possession since I never capitalized on that "commodity."

Also, if this $28 figure is correct, then we should really be paying $48.50 per ton and not $76.50. Why are we not internally making these savings rather than outsourcing them? Could save more local/municipal jobs.

RecycleBank is the entity that will receive that benefit, not the City or we taxpayers. I've read the article twice and I still don't understand how Lamar and Smuts arrived at these six digit figures, so if anyone can explain this to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by: blue dog dem | November 9, 2009 8:33 PM

"The New Haven Solid Waste Authority currently pays $76.50 per ton to have its garbage removed. Since recyclables are a commodity, the authority misses out on $28 of potential revenue for every ton of recyclables thrown away as garbage. That means every new ton of recyclables diverted from the garbage represents a total value of $104.50.

During the first five years of its contract with RecycleBank, the city will pay the company $70.40 for each ton recycled over the current average of 4,500 tons per year. That leaves $34.10 per ton, added back into the city budget."

Can someone please explain this math to me? If the city currently pays $76.50 and in the future will pay $70.40, that is a savings of $6.10 per ton or $27,450 per year (based on 4,500 tons stated above). You cannot claim to have a $28 per ton benefit if it is unrealized now and will not benefit you in the future. How is transferring the benefit to the new company putting money in our coffers? Is the City then going to get $28 per ton from RecycleBank, or is this just more fuzzy math? This is similar to me throwing out my deposit bottles and someone else taking them and cashing them in. I was never 5 cents richer in actuality even though they were in my possession since I never capitalized on that "commodity."

Also, if this $28 figure is correct, then we should really be paying $48.50 per ton and not $76.50. Why are we not internally making these savings rather than outsourcing them? Could save more local/municipal jobs.

RecycleBank is the entity that will receive that benefit, not the City or we taxpayers. I've read the article twice and I still don't understand how Lamar and Smuts arrived at these six digit figures, so if anyone can explain this to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

Posted by: Bill Saunders | November 10, 2009 1:37 AM

Rob Smuts,

Couple of quick anti-points:

1). If Octomom moves to New Haven, she should use the DIAPER BANK, rather than throwing human waste in among the recycling. Be aware of the services available, before you create your own bureaucratic octopus. A move backwards,towards clothe diapers, would also be a progressive step, but we all know how no one likes to get poo on their fingers these days.

2). Back to the bureaucratic Octopus -- the city will know fairly quickly, through the collection of end-product recycling, the effectiveness of the new program. Door-to-door, household by household micromanagement is nothing but ineffective 'carrot and stick' empire building, especially during a budget crisis.

3. Back to Leslie's post about the school system -- if you can not foster these principles at an early age, there is no hope of bringing them into the future.

4. How about recycling containers on the street, much like they have in Europe? All of the negative comments about this new recycling program will surely be applied to this 'proposal', but unless your are willing to confront the recycling monster head-on, in public, there will be no real raising of community awareness.

5. Win-Win-Win, translates to Spin, Spin Spin.
Once again, I have read nothing from this administration that is remotely outside of the box, though it does have the appearance of covering over serious mismanagement in the past.

Posted by: masoin | November 10, 2009 8:23 AM

great. now we can look forward to more illegal dumping all around the city!!

Posted by: Seth P. | November 10, 2009 9:27 AM

I am glad to see progress on this issue. We will all need to raise awareness amongst our neighbors. Great job Mr. Prokop and Mr. Smuts!!

Posted by: blue dog dem | November 10, 2009 10:19 AM

Can MacMillan or Bass get Smuts or Lamar to answer the questions I posed above? The numbers don't work and the City is selling off another asset while losing union jobs. Soon we'll hear that the City needs to create a new administrative position that costs more than the $27,000+ we're actually saving. It will go to a political insider, be a pretty cushy job trying to get people to recycle, with full benefits, etc. and we will be worse off than before.

Posted by: Satisfied customer | November 10, 2009 12:17 PM

Gotta love them big blue cans. You can put just about anything in 'em (old engine blocks, toxic waste,...). Keep it under 350 lbs and you're good to go. I call our blue can King Johnnie's Dumpster Service. Thanks...nice to know we're getting something for our tax dollars...lol

Posted by: cityboy | November 10, 2009 1:22 PM

How about smaller containers for smaller households? There are only 2 in my house; we can't fill the current trash can in a month and we aren't going to fill it with recycling, either. Not to mention that there's really no place for that behemoth. This is a city, remember. Space is at a premium. And now you want to add another one that's going to be a lot bigger than the recycling bins?

Posted by: Rob Smuts | November 11, 2009 4:37 PM

There are a lot of questions, but I'll try to hit the main ones. Perhaps NHI could do another piece with a more structured Q&A since there seems to be a lot of interest in this subject (which is a wonderful things).

Schools definitely need a revitalized recycling effort, and DPW - again, with the great leadership of John Prokop - is already working on this. After schools, we would like to figure out how to promote recycling at the apartment buildings and businesses (where we don't currently pick up their waste stream), in public spaces like streets and parks, and then identify a good way of doing composting. We're taking this a step at a time, but this initiative will hopefully be just the start.

The big blue 96-gallon toters are big - probably bigger than what is needed for either trash or recycling. Adding another brown 45-gallon toter for trash (they're going to be brown) will take up more space. These things are true, and are probably the biggest drawback to our new initiative. If I could, I would replace the 96-gallon toters with green 33 or 45-gallon recycling toters - but I'm not going to spend $1.6m of taxpayer money to do that when the blue 96-gallon toters are adequate. We will work with any household that does not have the space for both sets of toters to find a workable solution - if we need to buy smaller toters for 200 households, for instance, we'll spend the $10,000 to do so. We recognize that one size doesn't necessarily fit all, and tried to pick the solution that was most fiscally prudent that fit most circumstances, and will work on a case-by-case basis with those who need a modification.

The same concept is true in regards to my comment about the hypothetical New Haven Octomom. We certainly don't want to encourage someone to get a second trash toter and just keep on with their current practices and will be skeptical of requests for that reason - but we do realize there will be some households where a second 45-gallon trash toter is a practical necessity. I want this initiative to work in practice, not just in theory, and that will require some flexibility on the City's part.

The way the finances work is complicated, and I'd be happy to go into full detail with anyone who's interested - 946-7901 or rsmuts@newhavenct.net - but I'll try to give an overview here.

If you combine the financial standing of the City and the Solid Waste Authority (a city authority, but one with a separate structure and budget), we benefit to the tune of $104.50 for every ton that is recycled instead of thrown away - we don't have to pay $76.50 to get rid of the ton of garbage, and we sell the ton of recycling for $28. Over the last few years, we've been stuck at about 4,500 tons/year of recycling. The City recently entered into a new waste contract (with the $76.50 and $28 figures quoted above) after a loooong contract we inherited from a previous administration finally expired. The old contract had a much smaller differential between garbage and recycling, and required us to separate the recycling into four categories. The new contract allows for single-stream recycling, which means we don't have to separate the cans from the paper from the plastic, etc.

Other cities have done the first part of what we're proposing - giving bigger recycling containers and switching to single stream, and seen a positive response. Stamford has seen their recycling rate go up 47%, and Baltimore by about a third. We could do that without RecycleBank, but we'd have to spend $1.6m to buy new toters for everyone and a 40% increase in our recycling rate would only benefit the City by $188,100 per year. The City could hire staff to try to do better than a 40% increase, but with salary and benefits we're looking at at least $60-70,000 per person so I'm not sure that's terribly cost effective.

RecycleBank thinks they can get us a 200% increase - and they are putting their money where their mouth is. They are buying the new toters for us - $1.8m in cost when you factor in debt service fees - and don't get paid a dime unless our recycling rate increases. Of the $104.50 benefit per ton, we will pay them $70.60 to cover their costs and the costs of the toters - but only for tons above 4,500 per year. It costs them about $370,000 annually to pay the debt service on the new toters, and $200,000 to run their rewards program (the real cost is higher, but much of the cost of the rewards program is covered by advertisers on their website and other revenue like that). If recycling only goes up 50%, they get paid $158,850 from the City, the City keeps $76,275 in new revenue and the new toters, but RecycleBank has to pay all of their costs.

RecycleBank doesn't make money unless they help us get close to a 200% increase in our recycling rate. Without RecycleBank, the City could reasonably expect to get a $188,100 gross benefit, but have to pay $370,000 for five years to get there - so a net cost of $181,900. With RecycleBank, they pay that cost and we get a net benefit on top of that ranging from $0 (if no increase in recycling) to $305,100 (if they help us achieve the 200% increase).

As I said, that's a simplified explanation that 1) doesn't deal with the difference between the City's and the Authority's separate budgets and 2) only talks about the first 5 years of the 10-year contract. I'm not trying to hide those points and would be happy to give an explanation on them, but have probably written enough for now.

- Rob Smuts

Posted by: Rob Smuts | November 11, 2009 4:43 PM

(By the way: I am off today for Veterans' Day - I did not spend all the time to write that reply on the City's dime. - Rob)

Posted by: blue dog dem | November 11, 2009 7:31 PM

Mr. Smuts,

Thanks for explaining the financials. It seems to be a pretty good deal, on its face. Sorry to make you work on your day off.

BDD

Posted by: abg | November 12, 2009 3:51 PM

Recycle Bank has worked with more than 50 cities to increase recycling participation and all available evidence, including a recent award it received from the United Nations Environmental Program, suggests that it has been extremely successful for the environment, for its own bottom line, and for its municipal partners. In Hartford, which has similar population and demographics to New Haven, similar ratio of apartment dwellers to homeowners and percentage of non-English speaking residents, a pilot program showed strong results after 25 weeks – 100% increase in quantity of recycled materials, 416 tons recycled resulting in $30,000 savings from materials diverted from the waste disposal stream and resulting in over $4000 of rebates for residents. Collection efficiency for public works department workers was improved and 86% of the 4500 pilot households used the new recycling system. When recently implemented in Stamford, according to Stamford public services director Alexander Stergis, Stamford's recycling tonnage increased 48% (200 additional tons month-over-month) compared to the previous year and at the same time solid waste (garbage) numbers decreased 28%. The success of the program in these places has helped to attract additional public and private grant money not only for recycling but also for other environmental projects in the cities, because funders know that if you can get someone to see that recycling is in their own best interest as well as the best interest of the community, you can probably get them to see that installing compact fluorescent light bulbs is in their best interest as well as the best interest of the community, and that getting a home energy audit is in their best interest as well as the best interest of the community. This program should be seen as a foot in the door for increased environmental awareness among our city’s residents.

Recycle Bank is assuming essentially all of the economic risk for this program. They are providing up front the capital for new equipment so if they are unable to fulfill their obligations over the term of the contract, New Haven doesn't get the shaft. This program is win-win for economic and environmental reasons and proof that it is a false choice to set up a dichotomy between having a sound environment and a sound economy, between improving our city’s environmental services and lowering taxes for our residents.

The one thing that concerns me slightly about this program is that there must be strong education and outreach to maximize the potential of the program. Recycle Bank will do some of this. Having a city recycling coordinator would be a good investment. But there also needs to be a local, neighbor to neighbor component. Master Recyclers are committed to volunteering to go around to CMTs, community forums and other meetings to spread the word about the program. Everyone needs to chip in and educate their neighbors to enable the recycling program to reach its potential. It will take time to educate our citizenry so it is important that we start immediately and do so aggressively.

Finally, the implementation of these changes should be seen as the beginning, not the end, of a new vision for waste reduction in our city. I was just visiting my brother in San Francisco, and he told me that last month a mandatory food waste composting law passed in June goes into effect there. San Francisco already recycles around 70% of its waste and this new push to get people composting will raise that number even further and bring them closer to their ultimate goal of zero waste by 2020. Now of course New Haven is not San Francisco. But the point is that San Francisco city government has systematically assimilated and applied important lessons from behavioral economics (which has become increasingly sophisticated in recent years) related to adding incentives and mitigating disincentives – that is to say, SF has made recycling and waste reduction as convenient and financially rewarding as possible. Successive San Francisco mayoral administrations and successive generations of the board of supervisors have provided sustained, aggressive leadership in mapping and executing a long-term vision for waste reduction and environmental sustainability. There is no reason New Haven cannot and should not do the same.