Wednesday, February 22, 2006
WTOP: District Short of Recycling Goals
According to recents reports, the District still has a long way to go to reach its goal of 45% participation in the city's recycling program. DC has a pretty good recycling program (in my opinion), they pick up recycling once a week & you don't even need to sort your items (though items should be clean & you must rinse bottles & cans). The issue seems to be one of people's personal habits, and personal habits are hard to change. I remember attending a psa meeting where people complained about residents using the recycling cans, which are clearly market as for recyclables only, for trash disposal. The complainers were blaming DPW for the problem. Personally, I don't think DPW is at fault for this one. I suspect that most people are familiar with the recycling symbol (even if they couldn't/didn't read the instructions that came with the new cans). If people are still unfamiliar with the symbol, or if they just don't care enough to refrain from stuffing that can with trash, I'm not sure what kind of public education program is going to be effective. Creating habits when people are young is probably a good step, but again, difficult since you can't actually be in people's homes.
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Many of us in Near Northeast still haven't received the new trash and recycling containers...calling city-wide service center...again.
It took several calls before they realized the had skipped my block during the container delivery.
I grew up in Milwaukee where recycling bins were introduced in the early nineties. The city's way of enforcing participation (after a grace period) was to fine you if you weren't sorting your trash. Seems simple enough and fair enough to do.
I don't believe I've seen any PSAs like the ones I grew up with like "Give a Hoot Don't Pollute" the crying anti-litter Native American, or any other jingle about not littering.
The city needs to go beyond signs and junk mail (which I barely read anyway). There is recycling in neighboring areas maybe they can all get together and make a pro-recycling, anti-litter campaign.
On an unrelated note, S and S Shoe Repair, one of H Street's older businesses -- and my favorite facade -- is up for sale.
For more info:
www.dcmarketingcenter.org/retail_record.php?retailId=305
Thanks for the tip about S&S.
In Austin, TX, they limited folks in the amount of trash that could be put out (you had to pay for special bags if you wanted to throw away more) but allowed unlimited recycling. This created an incentive to separate stuff. Of course in Trinidad, a lot of people's idea of recycling is dropping trash in front of my house so I get to enjoy it as well so there's a lot of education and cultural change that's got to happen.
In my opinion, the district does NOT do a good job of collecting recyclables. I still haven't gotten a blue bin (but got a green one), and short of calling every week I don't get recyclables I set out picked up. All of my neighbors would recycle if DPW picked it up, but instead it gets left, THEN passers-by put trash in it.
Work places are a problem too. I'm fanatical about separation in my house, but my office doesn't have recycling facilties. It's a shame because most all I toss at work is recyclable (paper, paper, paper). Maybe focusing on residential service is not the answer?
The District has special (they look stricter to me, but maybe there are exceptions) recycling rules for businesses.
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