The council heard a summary of recycling progress tonight. It appears that as a whole we’ve been recycling more than we’ve been inclined to in the past.
I was one of the many who threw everything in the trash right up until Jan or Feb when I first learned that the town actually made money on recycling and I’m still eagerly awaiting a larger single stream recycling barrel, as I’ve found it’s all but impossible to fit a week’s worth of recycling in that little orange box. I don’t think it’s widely known that the town effectively makes $82/ton on recycled trash and the lack of that knowledge combined with the inadequacy of the orange boxes as a practical waste receptacle are certainly a perfect cocktail for poor recycling participation.
Hartford started their single stream recycling pilot already and their success or failure will have an impact on the future of our recycling program. Hartford has implemented a system where residents are rewarded through a program with recyclebank.com for recycling the greatest amount of material possible. The new recycling barrels in Hartford are uniquely identified and weighed at pickup allowing each household to keep track of and receive rewards for the amount of recycling they do. It would seem this positive reward system when combined with larger containers is an ideal method to encourage citizens to recycle more, or at all in some cases. It’s many times less disturbing in any case than the concept that Mr. Taylor, Public Works Director, had earlier expressed and has hopefully forgotten that the weighing technology, which is use din Hartford, be adopted and used to weigh and bill each household for their waste on top of the taxes they already pay.
There is another financial consideration that is shifting violently against tipping fee cost reduction in East Hartford. It costs the town the full tipping fee when citizens throw articles in the trash bin that don’t belong there such as yard waste, leaves, trees, etc. With rapidly accelerating fuel prices it seems likely that this type of forbidden waste, which is supposed to be brought to the landfill, will become considerably more common in trash cans. At $72/ton tipping it costs $1.80 for the town to dispose of 50 pounds of brush and other yard waste thrown in a trash barrel. If the citizen lives more than 4 ½ miles from the landfill, as a large number do, or has a vehicle which gets less than 20MPG they’d be better off eating the tipping fee in taxes than burning the gas to drive to the landfill and back.
Tags: East Hartford, Hartford, Recycling
