February 10, 2009
Opinion
To Encourage Recycling, Make It Simpler
We all don't need to be like Dave Chameides, the guy who hoarded his trash in the basement for a year.
But we can learn something from his extreme effort to show that more can be done with garbage than burning or burying it.
Chameides, a West Hartford native, recently donated the trash he couldn't recycle, compost or feed to the worms to a museum at the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority in Hartford.
Our problem is that even as our trash plants and garbage collectors embrace "single-stream" recycling — where they collect all the plastic, paper and metal in one bin — not enough towns are making it easier to recycle.
Where I live in West Hartford, they gave out gargantuan trash barrels on wheels when the town began automated collection last year, but didn't bother replacing the much smaller recycling bins. On trash day, the blue bins are overflowing, but there are no immediate plans to hand out barrels that would hold more waste that can be recycled.
Town Manager Ron Van Winkle said that the town generates 30,500 tons of trash annually, but that just 23 percent of this is recycled. Interestingly, the price is about $16 per ton cheaper to dispose of garbage that can be recycled.
Recycling is obviously the better deal, but it takes an investment. Because towns and cities aren't doing enough, Gov. Rell, along with Democrats in the legislature and even one beverage industry leader, are pushing an expansion of the 31-year-old bottle bill to pay for more recycling. Among the proposals is a plan to take the deposit money and create a special fund that towns could tap to improve recycling programs.
"I have nothing to gain by what we are doing other than to show the rest of the country there are more or less model solutions that can be implemented," said Kim Jeffery, CEO of bottled beverage giant Nestle Waters North America, when I asked why he was supporting adding water bottles to the list of returnable containers.
"We've got to figure out a way to get the stuff back so we can reuse it. We need an expanded system that allows consumers to recycle in ways that are convenient to them."
When recycling is easier, more people do it. In Glastonbury and Portland, where they are using larger bins, the number of tons of recycled trash is up significantly, according to the CRRA. The numbers are also up in Hartford and Bristol.
"It takes up less space in my garage. The old bins didn't hold things properly. This holds a whole lot more," said Susan Bransfield, the first selectwoman in Portland. "People are more willing to recycle because they have the container to put it in."
The Department of Environmental Protection's official goal is to double the state's recycling rate, to 60 percent, over the next 20 years. Putting more out at the curb seems like an obvious answer.
"With the great solid waste management plan DEP put together there is no money. So how are we going to go anywhere?" said C.J. May, president of the Connecticut Recyclers Coalition, who told me that right now too much of the relatively high-value plastic in water bottles is going to waste.
"If you want the most efficient system, you forget the bottle bill and go for curbside. But for the most successful collection and highest participation, it's the bottle bill," said May, who runs recycling programs at Yale University.
That's why adding water — and perhaps other containers — to the bottle bill is a good idea, said state Rep. Beth Bye, because it will bring in revenue that can be earmarked exclusively for recycling. Rell's plan would create a special trust fund for deposit revenues.
"The money should be used as a vehicle to get us to single-stream recycling. We are not going to be there for at least 10 years," Bye said.
Chameides, whose wife would tolerate only a year of trash stockpiling, said that the experience, and what he learned about recycling, has altered his outlook.
"If people would stand up and say we are not going to accept this anymore," he said, "it would change."
http://www.courant.com/news/local/columnists/hc-rgreen0210.artfeb10,0,2525101.column
