In our small city, the way we recycle has evolved through the years. It used to be a paid curb-side pick-up, once a week, in small 10-gallon tubs, and certain items had to be separated: glass, plastic, metal, and paper. The tubs for the program were free, or borrowed rather, but each household had to pay for the service for the pleasure of recycling. The other option, if you did not want to pay to recycle, was to take your recycling to a drop-off center; there were and still are about half-a-dozen locations around the city.

Then about ten years ago, to encourage more people to recycle, the city changed to a free single-stream curb-side pick-up. Now everyone can recycle from home without having to pay for the service. I know, I know, nothing is free. The caveat is that the pick-up changed to once per month and residents have to pay a one time fee of $50 for the 95-gallon tote. This recycling scheme was thrown in to sweeten the deal for the new waste hauler to win the contract for hauling garbage for the city residents. And overall, it really is a better way to recycle.

Let’s breakdown why the current way is better:

1. Single-stream vs. sorting – Sorting recycling at home is a pain. It requires multiple storage containers which takes up more floor space in the garage (or wherever it is that one has room to store recycling): one for glass, one for plastic, one for metal, and one for paper. It means that you have to either take recycling directly out to the garage bins or that you have to handle each item again from a co-mingled collection in the kitchen to sort later into the garage bins. Single-stream, on the other hand, is recycling that is mixed together in one big bin. Glass, plastic, metal, and paper all go into one recycling container. You can collect all items in a co-mingled container in the kitchen and dump the entire contents into a large bin in the garage much like taking out the trash.
2. Paid bin vs. paid service – The city knows that all citizens have garbage and likely 100% use the city’s trash pick-up. (And they should, they pay for it after all!) However, I am not sure if there is a community anywhere in the U.S. that voluntarily recycles at 100%. So the hauling company did not want to drop a 95-gallon tote off at every house in the city. They only wanted to drop totes off for those who would actually use them. And to off-set the cost, they charged a one-time $50 fee for the recycling tote. They do have a program for low income families to request a tote with the fee waived. There was no fee waiver for the weekly curb-side pick-up that I know of. Those who could not afford the service only had the option of driving to the drop-off center. Paying for the weekly recycling service was something like $10 per month, if my memory serves me right. Paying $50 once, is a much better deal than paying $120 per year, every year.
3. Once a month vs. once a week – Collecting recycling only once per month on the surface seems like a bad deal. In fact, I was upset and pretty dead against this new way of doing things at first. But bear with me, I will admit that I was wrong and I have come to appreciate the once per month schedule. The once per month schedule is why this service can operate for free. This is twelve times per year, versus fifty-two times per year. I have no idea how much is costs to run all of the routes for the entire city, but this is a 77% decrease in trucks, fuel, and man-hours. Let’s guesstimate: if say, per day that it costs $250 per truck, $200 per man, for 20 routes throughout the city the total is $9,000 to run the recycling routes for one week. If we still had the once a week pick-ups (52 times per year) this would total $468,000, versus the once per month pick-ups (12 times per year) at $108,000, for the year. I may be way off on my numbers, but you get the idea; it is way cheaper as often is the case it is greener. If it takes a tank of diesel per truck per day this is also a 77% savings from burning fossil fuels and all of the associated emissions. Now you can see how I came around to appreciate the once per month pick-ups.

Single-stream recycling is dumped into a garbage truck and taken to the recycling center where it is sorted through a series of mechanical and manual methods.

Our city has truly made recycling as easy as possible and it is hard to understand why some people still do not recycle. I actually think my family needs to get another recycling tote so that we can recycle more. Toward the end of the month, I know my husband starts trashing the recyclables because we are running out of room in the tote. There were also a few months when I missed putting the tote out on the curb and then we would have to wait an entire month for the pick-up. (Admittedly because we were too lazy and busy to take it to a drop-off center.) I called once to see if they could come back because I had missed the truck. That is when I found out that there is a free opt-in text reminder to alert you to put your recycling out the night before pick-up! Since signing up for the text alerts I have not missed any pick-ups. Now I just need to get that extra tote and make sure everything makes it into the recycling.