UP Residents Don’t Recycle Much
I asked Steve Mace, the official spokesman for the city of UP, to address some questions that came up in our discussion about the new recycling program. His arguments make sense. I hadn’t thought about how much an open-top bin can contain:
Based on collection figures from 2000-2007 (tonnage and cubic yard figures), the average U.P. household recycles about 1.98 gallons per week, per home.
As was mentioned in the April Arbor, the aim of the bin program is to encourage greater participation and increase recycling awareness. For many residents, the bins will likely make it easier to get the recycling material to the alley for collection.
The City is going to encourage residents to continue to bag their recyclable materials to prevent the material from getting wet and/or being scattered in the alley.
Open-top bins will allow residents to put more recycled material in the containers. 3 to 4 13-gallon kitchen bags can be placed in one 18-gallon bin. While residents will still be allowed to deposit recycling material in the familiar blue bags, residents will be asked to fill their bins first and then the blue bags.
The City will continue to monitor recycling volumes and it will recommend new, larger containers as warranted. It is the City’s intention, after the first few weeks of the bin program, to allow residents to purchase additional bins. Again, we want to track overall use and volume, before placing an order for additional bins.
The City is excited about the June launch of this effort. By way of perspective, the City currently collects about 13 times as much garbage as recycling.
The math doesn’t seem to work here - I don’t see how 3 to 4 13-gallon kitchen bags can fit in an 18-gallon bin. I think it is a good idea if it encourages recycling though.
We recycle more than we put out as garbage. Probably 90% of plastics and styrofoams are recyclable now plus we have all of the newspapers and kids’ schoolwork to add to the pile.
Several questions have still not been answered:
1) Can we purchase our own 32-gallon blue trash can and place it next to the other trash cans– making it a neat fit? (I use the larger 30-gallon blue bags and not the dinky twinky 13-gallon version.
2) If I do purchase the blue 32-gallon, will the sanitation crews ignore it, and require me to fill the dinky 18-gallon first?
3) This new 18-gallon bin will be empty after the collection. What’s to prevent it from getting knocked around? And how will this work with the required placement of the regular trash cans?
With all due respect to the title of this post, Jason, I must disagree. Given all the second and third marriages in the PC, clearly our residents favor recycling.