As New Haven prepares to roll out a new garbage collection system, citizens have banded together to help salvage recycling in the Elm City.
They call themselves the New Haven Master Recyclers. They’ve been studying upcoming changes in how the city collects and disposes of waste, as it climbs back up from a rock bottom recycling rate. Only about 10 percent of the New Haven’s trash is currently recycled, according to city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts.
Eight of the new group’s members, from East Rock and the Whalley Avenue area, met Monday night at Junta for Progressive Action on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven. They told horror stories of neighbors throwing bottles, cans and newspaper into the city-provided 96-gallon toters along with non-recyclable garbage.
“That’s what happens when you don’t have anybody paying attention to it,” said Sherill Baldwin (pictured), a Fair Haven Heights resident whose day job is managing the website of the recycling office in the state Department of Environmental Protection. With the New Haven Master Recyclers she will work as a volunteer, along with everyone else; the city eliminated its recycling staff years ago.
In 1989, the DEP mandated nine items for recycling (cardboard, glass food containers, leaves, metal food containers, newspaper, office paper, scrap metal, storage batteries, and waste oil). It decided municipalities should be recycling 25 percent of their solid waste by 2000. New regulations this year mandate 58 percent by 2024.
Which means New Haven has far to go.
It hopes to get there soon with a switch to “single stream recycling.” That means that people will throw all their cans, newspapers, mixed paper and bottles into one bin.
And they’ll use the big 96-gallon bins that the city now has people use for regular trash. The city will distribute smaller toters for unrecyclable household trash. (Click here for a 2007 interview with Smuts on upcoming changes in recycling.) The changes are scheduled to start taking effect this fall.
Baldwin said her group can help with the transition because people will inevitably get confused about throwing all recyclables into one big bin. “That can lead to tremendous amounts of contamination” with non-recyclable trash without enough explanation, she said.
Along adopting its name (inspired by the “master gardener” concept), the new group defined its mission as education, promotion and outreach about recycling, waste reduction and reuse among residents and businesses of New Haven.
Baldwin said she is working with the city Public Works Director John Prokop and the New Haven Regional Recycling and Solid Waste Authority. “He’s given his blessing to this, and he’s guiding us,” she said of Prokop. She said she got a taste of the depth of the city’s financial woes when she learned that Prokop’s own secretary had recently been laid off.
In addition to Monday night’s Fair Haven meeting, Baldwin convened a similar gathering weeks ago in the Hill, for which she advertised mostly through different list-servs. Several people came who heard about it through Green Drinks, an environmental networking social scene.
Veronica Rapinska (pictured) is a graphic designer who took on the task of designing a flyer outlining the new requirements.
Meeting participants had plenty of ideas for educating their neighbors. “Through the block watches,” said one. “Through the management teams,” said another. “Through Mayor’s Night Out,” someone offered.
“It’d be great to get a resurgence going, to do the basics and then move on to things like composting,” Baldwin said. And “we’re going to save the city money,” because it currently costs more than twice as much to deal with trash as recyclables. According to a new contract struck last year, the city’s trash authority now gets paid for its recyclables, instead of having to pay.
The authority gets paid $25 per ton of recyclables collected on city streets. On the other hand, it has to pay $70 for every ton of trash that’s collected. As it plans for reforms, the city is looking at passing down some of those savings to neighbors who recycle.
To volunteer to help with the education and outreach, email Baldwin here.
<i>It hopes to get there soon with a switch to "single stream recycling." That means that people will throw all their cans, newspapers, mixed paper and bottles into one bin.</i>
<i>And they'll use the big 96-gallon bins that the city now has people use for regular trash.</i>
These changes should significantly reduce the current hassle of preparing the recycling for pickup. I agree with their assessment that this will help increase participation - possibly dramatically.
<i>The city will distribute smaller toters for unrecyclable household trash.<i>
That idea may not so good. It follows the theory of trying to force residents to reduce the volume of trash, but instead may result in overflowing trash in the smaller containers that will spill out into neighborhoods. That would be a step backwards for both refuse management and efforts to improve the livability of neighborhoods.</i></i>