Thomas MacMillan Photo.
New brown 48-gallon trash Toters will appear on the front lawns of East Shore homes Saturday as the neighborhood becomes the latest to join a city-wide effort to boost recycling.
City officials announced that news Wednesday in front of the Morris Cove fire station on Townsend Avenue in the East Shore.
The bins come as the city seeks to expand recycling pick-up on the Friday collection route, which runs through the East Shore and part of Fair Haven. People living there will get brown Toters this weekend to put their trash in. They’ll start using the old, larger blue Toters for their recycling.
The switch is aimed at increasing city recycling rates, saving the city money and keeping more trash out of landfills. Neighborhoods covered by the Monday and Tuesday trash pick-up routes—Westville and Newhallville/East Rock, respectively — have already made the switch. The last two of the weekly routes — Wednesday and Thursday — will follow this fall and next spring.
Prokop (center) with Mayor John DeStefano and Christine Eppstein Tang.
John Prokop, director of the Department of Public Works, said his staff will be distributing 5,700 brown Toters this weekend. The city saves $106 for each ton of waste diverted from trash to recycling, he said. If the city meets a goal of recycling 30 percent of municipal waste, that could add up to $1 million in savings, Prokop said.
Christine Eppstein Tang, director of the Office of Sustainability, said each new brown Toter comes with a letter telling people how to use it properly. Teens with the Youth@Work summer job program have also been canvassing the neighborhood to prepare residents for the switch, she said.
Prokop said trash collectors will be watching closely during the first couple of weeks to make sure people are complying with the new paradigm. If not, they’ll get a doorknocker with information about which Toter they should put trash in and which to put recycling in. Within three to four weeks, the route will be up to 80 percent compliance, Prokop said.
It’s hard to get to a compliance rate higher than 80 percent, mostly because New Haven has such a transient population and people don’t always know the system, Prokop said.
The overall goal is to get to 30 percent recycling rate city-wide by the end of next year, Tang said. Switching to big recycling Toters has tended to give a big boost to neighborhood recycling rates, she said. Westville is up to between 25 and 32 percent recycling; the Tuesday route is at about 20 percent; all other parts of the city are still below 10 percent, Tang said.
This is good very good. We will eventually be saving money for the taxpayers. The question I have is why are we pay this Tang and the young man with her such nice salaries to repeat or state what John Prokop can state to residents. Save through recycling and waste through unnecessary personnel. Argh,very tiring for myself and all the other taxpayers. All these new departments, employees and deputies. Ridiculous.