“I’m Green & I Recycle”? Not So Fast

A plan to jump-start the city’s commercial recycling business, seemingly on a fast track, hit three bumps Thursday night: Election-year politics, a staff resignation, and opposition from commercial haulers.

The plan came from East Rock Alderman Matt Smith. He noticed that not a single New Haven apartment-building or business-owner is recycling with the city rather than with a private hauler. He drew up a plan to change that and use the proceeds to restore tree-planting in New Haven. He made it a centerpiece of his reelection campaign. City officials backing his campaign cheered and promised to help shepherd it to passage. (Read about that here.)

Thursday night the plan came up for a hearing before an aldermanic committee and a shot to advance for final approval from the full Board of Aldermen.

Smith wasn’t there.

Carroll Hughes was. He represents the statewide private recycling and waste companies, including ones that do business in New Haven (and therefore stand to lose money if Smith’s bill passes). Hughes was the only one to testify about the bill. He blasted it.

Smith’s colleagues on the board’s Finance Committee put off dealing with the bill for another day.

What happened?

First, Smith lost his seat in the Sept. 14 Democratic Party primary. He announced to constituents Thursday that he will not seek reelection as an independent in November. (He had secured an independent ballot slot.)

He didn’t show up to Thursday’s hearing because he had a prior ​“commitment,” he said when reached Thursday night.

“My apologies that I wasn’t there,” he said. ​“I was actually surprised it was on the agenda and didn’t expect it to be there until next month.”

What about city officials?

The energetic point person for Smith’s plan in the Department of Public Works, Howard Weissberg, resigned as of last Friday.

Meanwhile, Hughes, a lobbyist and spokesman for the state chapter of the National Solid Wastes Management Association, poked holes in Smith’s plan at Thursday night’s hearing in City Hall.

Smith’s plan would change the city recycling process to make it more competitive with private haulers by, for instance, offering owners of apartment buildings and businesses Dumpsters rather than the current 96-gallon toters and reconsidering the $225 annual fee. Smith had also planned to research and report on why businesses aren’t using the city system. His plan also called for using $10,000 in revenues from the first year of the revised program to restore some of the $17,500 cut this year from a city tree-planting program.

Hughes’ response to the aldermen Thursday night: This will be a lot harder than you think it is.

“It’s not as easy as it once was to just say, ​‘I’m green and I recycle,’” said Carroll.

He rattled off needed elements in a recycling plan that he said Smith’s proposed plan hasn’t adequately dealt with. Trucks to carry different sizes of recycling bins, for instance. Staff to maintain the containers themselves. A place to temporarily store the collected recyclables before selling them for a supposed profit.

He also dismissed Smith’s assumption that the city can make money off of this expansion, as nonsense.

Hughes was speaking out of his members’ self-interest, of course. But he wasn’t challenged at the meeting; no aldermen present challenged him. Committee Chairman Yusuf Shah declared that because so many interested parties were absent, the committee would hold off dealing with the matter until its next monthly meeting.

Reached on his cell phone after the meeting, Smith disagreed with Hughes.

“I’m still looking at some of the numbers,” he said, acknowledging that his initial expectation that the city would make at least $10,000 the first year might have been ​“a little” optimistic. Still, he insisted the program shouldn’t cost the city any money.

And the city isn’t trying to make a profit the way that Carroll’s clients are, Smith argued. ​“I’m not surprised that somebody from the commercial sector would find our numbers a bit low, considering that they’re probably making a tidy profit off of this type of service.”

“To be honest with you, the campaign derailed more speedy implementation of this,” Smith said. He said he also hadn’t expected Weissberg’s resignation.

“I was working closely with Howard,” he said, finishing his sentence after a long pause. ​“And now he’s no longer here.”

But despite the hurdles, Smith said he expects the plan to go forward. He hopes the Board of Aldermen will pass it before the end of this year so it can be implemented by the beginning of 2012.