June 11, 2009

Administration Announces Green Dream
By Meredith Crawford

    In an effort to boost revenues by any and all means this fiscal year, the administration presented a novel recycling initiative to the Town Council last week. The program, which would allow residents the option of “donating” to the town the standard five-cent deposit paid upon recycling a can or bottle, would be the first of its kind in the nation. The funds collected would be earmarked for education.

    Prior to the program’s presentation to the council by John Loffredo, Mayor April Capone Almon issued a detailed press release on the initiative. The mayor called the plan “a four-pronged strategy to create true cash savings for the town, provide additional funds earmarked specifically for the benefit of the school children of East Haven, embrace an all-encompassing recycling initiative, and drive incremental revenues without increasing taxes.”

    Capone Almon said this program is also an answer to the question posed by many town residents of what they can do to help East Haven during these challenging economic times. She said that residents’ increasing their recycling efforts could have a dramatic impact on the town—both in cost savings due to decreased trash tonnage collected and in revenues from potential deposit donations.

    “The town currently pays $62.50 a ton to dispose of its trash,” explained the mayor. “East Haven currently recycles approximately 9.5 percent of its trash, saving the town approximately $79,500 in waste-disposal costs. The town brought in a recycling marketing firm this past winter to explore options available to increase the town’s recycling efforts. We were amazed when the company told us that a town in Massachusetts was recycling close to 40 percent of its waste using [the firm’s] program. I know that East Haven residents can do that, too.”

    Because launching such a plan would require “a large, upfront investment” by the town, Capone Almon developed the deposit-donation plan as an “alternative method to drive the same enthusiasm…[and] a way for everyone to get involved and help out the community.”

    Capone Almon pointed out that if residents doubled their amount of recycling, the savings to the town in waste-disposal costs would be $171,600 annually. In addition, if those recycled items were brought to a town recycling center and those deposits donated to the town, the mayor said significant revenues could be accrued.

    The potential recycling center, Loffredo said at last week’s council meeting, would be located in the new public works building on North High Street. The cost for leasing the can and bottle recycling machines from the international environmental company with which the town is working, Envipco, would be approximately $900 per month, he said.

    “When we told Envipco about out idea, they were ecstatic and informed us East Haven would be the very first municipality in the country to launch such a program,” said Capone Almon. “This phase of the recycling program has a September rollout date, which will coincide with the new bottle bill that takes effect Oct. 1 (whereby plastic water bottles will also require a five-cent deposit)…A representative from Envipco estimates the program, when fully ramped up, can generate $500,000 to $700,000 a year for the town.”

    While there was almost unanimous support for the program among council members, some residents in the audience at last week’s meeting were skeptical. Republican Town Committee Chairman Carl Ruggiero, for example, questioned why residents would travel across town to donate the deposit to East Haven when they could more easily redeem the deposit from a local supermarket.

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