Better Recycling: Carts (not bins) + Education

 A major nonprofit group has two proven ideas for bettering every place’s recycling performance:

(1)  Use large carts with covers, not smaller uncovered bins.

(2) Flood residents with information about what to recycle – and scold them politely but directly when they make mistakes.

The group is the Virginia-based Recycling Partnership, which boasts it works “with thousands of communities to transform underperforming recycling programs.”

Its 76-page 2020 State of Curbside Recycling Report says, “Tremendous progress can be made by converting bin- or bag-based collection to cart-based collection.”

Its survey of 435 communities found that those that used large carts with covered tops delivered about 100 more pounds of recyclables per household annually than places that used the smaller open-topped bins. That “almost 28 percent difference underscores that moving the bin-based programs to carts is still enormously important strategy.”

Shores Recycling bin

I think about bins a lot because I live in Miami Shores, which uses the smaller bins. They have no tops, and many residents – trying to be conscientious – bundle their recycling inside plastic garbage bags so the stuff won’t blow away or get wet in the rain. 

Trouble is, those plastic bags create an awful mess at the Waste Connections recycling facility where the Shores material is taken. Four workers at the start of the conveyer belt grab as many bags as possible and throw them in the pile destined for landfill. Those bags that get through gum up the system, which is often stopped four times a day just to pull the bag remnants out of the gears.

(For more details on this, see previous stories HERE and HERE.)

The Recycling Partnership knows how to stop bad behavior. First, it says, continually educate residents. “Mail an annual card to give them an easy reference guide to your basic YES and NO lists.” Then follow up: “Target your most problematic contaminant by mailing a top issue postcard two collection cycles after the annual info card.”

Most importantly – and this is the real sledgehammer – when a resident messes up, staffers should be instructed NOT to empty the bins. “Direct feedback is extremely powerful in changing behavior. Train staff to use Oops Tags.”

I’ll bet that those folks wrapping their stuff in garbage bags would stop their behavior immediately if their stuff was left at the curb one time and a tag attached to it saying what they did wrong.

I have thought about dropping notes in people’s mailboxes – but I haven’t worked up the energy/courage to get that intrusive. That should be the village’s job.

Last year, Village Manager Esmond Scott told me the Shores has an advantage with its smallish bins, compared to the large 65-gallon carts used by many cities: In those, it’s easy to hide garbage at the bottom of the bin, unlike the Shores, where workers dump the contents by hand, said Scott.

One Recycling Partnership survey backs up Scott’s view. It showed that 17.7 percent of the goods in carts surveyed were contaminated, compared to 12.7 percent in bins.

64-gallon covered cart

Still, the partnership points to the vastly larger materials that end up in carts as a distinctive advantage. A supervisor at a local recycling facility added his opinion: Material in carts with tops were much better because materials couldn’t get wet, unlike the uncovered bins. Too much moisture in mixed paper means entire truckloads could be rejected by paper plants, because they pay by weight, and they don’t want to pay for the added weight of water.

      SARASOTA AND IOWA CITY SUCCESS STORIES

Recycling Partnership points to Sarasota as a marked success for cart  programs. With the help of $1 million from the Coca-Cola Foundation, it “amped up education and new, 95-gallon single-stream carts,” the partnership reported. The city of 57,000 had been using 18-gallon bins. With the larger carts, the city moved to collecting every other week.

Thanks to a “robust recycling education,” aided by partnership funding, the city has seen three-quarters of households participate. Recycling volume is up 70 percent. The local recycling center reports that the material is “very clean.”

Similar results have been achieved elsewhere. In Iowa City, moving to 65-gallon carts meant a 30 percent in “collected tonnage,” or about 60 pounds more per household each year.

In Ohio, where five communities form the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio, moving to lidded 65-gallon carts increased recycling by about 40 additional pounds per household a year. The change was supported by funds from the PepsiCo Foundation. Once again, the change was backed by a ramped-up education program.

The full Partnership report is available at https://recyclingpartnership.org/state-of-curbside-report-2020/