Paul Bass Photo
Westvillers this weekend received new brown bins with a clear message about how to start disposing of their garbage in a new way — along with an unclear message about when to start.
It turns out they can use the new system starting this Monday. Or they can wait a week if their garbage is already put away the old way.
City Public Works Director John Propkop said the official start of the new system is Monday, Aug. 23. But if people start using the new system today (Sunday), their garbage will be picked up just fine tomorrow (Monday).
Westville is the first test spot for a new garbage recycling system designed to go citywide over the next couple of years.
People will now put their recycleable garbage in the tall 96-gallon blue bins currently used for other, nonrecycleable household trash.
That other nonrecycleable household trash will go in brown 48-gallon brown toters (pictured). The city delivered those toters to Westville households Saturday and Saturday. (Read about the new system and the roll-out here.)
Which immediately confused people throughout the neighborhood. Because Westville garbage gets picked up on Monday. Many people already had disposed of their garbage the old way. Now they had the new bins and the new directions. The written directions that came with the toters didn’t mention which Monday the program begins.
So neighbors didn’t know whether the new system starts this Monday or the following Monday. If it starts this Monday, should they remove non-recycled trash already in their blue toters and transfer it to the brown toters? And move recyclables from the soon-to-be-vestigial small blue bins and transfer them to the 96-gallon blue toters? Or should they wait a week?
The city did send robo-calls Friday evening to people on the government’s call list. However those calls confused people too. “This is an important message from the City of New Haven regarding your trash pick-up on Monday,” the message began — suggesting to some people that it had to do with the pick-up coming that Monday. But the message ended by saying the system starts on Aug. 23, or the following Monday.
Reached on vacation Sunday, public works chief Prokop said no one should worry. They have a week to, um, sort it out.
“However it goes out tomorrow we’re going to pick it up. Whether it’s in the new containers or the old containers, it makes no difference,” Prokop said. ““We didn’t expect people to stay home this weekend and transfer garbage from one container to another. But if people do that, we’re prepared.”
How will garbage crews know what to look for inside the different bins Monday?
“If there’s a brown container out there, we’re going to pop the container and assume garbage is in there,” Prokop said. “If the blue bin we open has garbage in it it, we’re gonna take that as garbage as well.”
What can Brown do for you? Thanks for lending some clarity to the new recycling procedures. While Westville traditionally has the highest recycling rate, is that the criterion that should guide the implementation of the new program city wide? Westville will (and always does) follow the process - should not the "test" run be conducted on other parts of the city where the old system has still not caught on. Whole swatches of communities seem oblivious to the idea of recycling and New Haven needs an education campaign to bring those areas around. Oh yes, should we recycle our old recycling bins that were never big enough, or use them for the overflow trash may not fit into the new brown bins?