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For this entry, I have done some research on specifically how other communities have made the transition to having a citywide recycling program. Several cities have used an educational campaign to help people understand the benefits of recycling before actually launching a program. Not only is recycling beneficial for the environment, but it can also have a key role in economics. Different aspects include less money to ship trash to a landfill and the opportunity for jobs.
By using other cities’ economic growth and/or showing how others have saved money by recycling, I think it will be tough for Manhattan to say no. I think an educational campaign can be particularly beneficial because once the program kicks off, people will be anticipating it and will be excited to participate. Just a few of the cities I researched:
http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org/success/orange_grove_recycling_center.shtml
Chattanooga, TN
Orange Grove Recycling Center
- An extensive period of planning and assessment preceded expansion of the facility.
- The city launched an educational program on the benefits of recycling prior to implementing the city-wide program.
- In areas where volunteers visited residents to discuss the benefits of recycling, a 50% increase in materials left at the curbside for recycling was realized.
- Orange Grove staff estimate the citywide recycling program is diverting more than 4,000 tons of recyclables per month from the landfill.
- The Orange Grove Recycling Center processes more than 50 tons of recyclables per day.
- An education area within the Recycling Center is being developed and will be the site of tours, meetings, fields trips, etc.
http://www.smartcommunities.ncat.org/success/imperial_recycling.shtmlImperial City Recycling Project
Imperial, NE
- Mailings, newspaper articles and personal contact through training programs to various groups were utilized to effectively educate residents as to the importance of recycling and using products made from recycled materials.
- Recycling generates a savings of about $14,000 a year in avoided landfill costs.
More than $3,400 has been earned from the sale of recyclables. - Every month, Imperial City recycles an average of:
13,600 pounds of cardboard
3,700 pounds of glass
450 pounds of plastic
8,200 pounds of newspaper
3,200 pounds of paper and magazines
750 pounds of tin 480 pounds of aluminum - All funds from aluminum can proceeds are earmarked for Imperial grade school playground equipment.
http://www.loveyourisland.com/News/TrashMangersDispelMyths.htm
Key West, FL
- Business owners believe it costs more to recycle, but in reality it can save them money
- For example, a 96-gallon trash can of recyclables costs $31 per pickup, while the same size can of garbage costs $73.25 per pickup.
- The theory is that removing recycling from the garbage should allow for fewer garbage pickups or smaller cans.
- A more imminent change in Key West is the addition of 1,000 recycle bins that are on order. Some will be placed throughout the city during festivals and other events that draw large numbers of people.
- Recycling bins also will be stored at the city’s Public Works building so people will not have to drive to Waste Management on Rockland Key to pick them up.
- Another possibility is enacting mandatory recycling laws for cans and bottles, in which garbage would actually be checked to make sure no cans or bottles are present, Man nix said.
- Outside Key West, the city of Marathon recently placed recycle bins around its parks and athletic fields, and Islamorada plans to establish recycling goals and develop incentives for participation.
Overall, I think that in order for us to have a successful city-wide recycling program we need to offer education and incentives. Many people may not see the value in recycling, so an educational movement should be the first step. In getting a program established, there also must be an incentive for people to get involved. Unless recycling is free or enables people to save money (e.g. recycling bins cost less than trash bins) it will be difficult to get a high turnout. Especially in Manhattan, where we have such a high student population, saving money will be crucial.
I recently met the new Mayor of Manhattan and some of the City Commissioners, so hopefully they will be willing to meet with to discuss some of what I have learned about citywide recycling. I would like to share with them some of my research and show them that now is a vital time to look into the opportunity of citywide recycling. I am also curious as to what their current plans are, with the new facility being available in the very near future. Perhaps I can use what we have been talking about in class related to environmental justice to inspire the City Commissioners to change our city policy on trash/recycling. We will see!
Well, I’m three weeks into my project and it’s going slow but steady. The comment was made about the recent proposal for city-university funding for a recycling center, and the link was given (in case you didn’t see it):
Yes, it’s true, it looks like we will be getting a new facility. SGA is actually heavily involved with the City-University Fund proposal process, and I for one was very excited to see that in this year’s request. To back up a little bit, the City-University Fund is created by tax dollars generated on campus. Our SGA Governmental Relations Committee, along with the administration, spends pretty much the fall semester putting together different projects that incorporate the university and the city, such as additional crosswalks with lights, the Good Neighbors Program, widening Denison Avenue (remember when there was no turn lane?), etc. The proposal is looked at by the President and other administrators, goes to a committee made of community leaders and two student representatives, then to the City Commission. The plan for this funding is that it will be spread out over the course of three years to build a brand new recycling facility.
I hope we do not have to wait for three years before we see some recycling in this town. Maybe up until that point we can use some local companies to help us. I suppose that is all part of my project.
I really liked the idea brought up in another blog about restaurants recycling. I was able to find a really informative article – http://www.norcalwaste.com/press/prrestaurantrecycling.htm
Just a couple of highlights from it -
-Jack London Square, Oakland: New numbers confirm Oakland’s Jack London Square, which also expanded and improved waste recovery programs this year with Norcal, is recycling or composting 122 tons of waste material each month.
-Children’s Hospital in Oakland, contracting with Norcal to improve recycling, established new programs capturing cardboard, paper, glass and plastic bottles and metal cans.
All those ideas in just the city of Oakland!
I came across this article that raised some suspicion. http://www.methodsreporter.com/2008/02/13/60604-chicago-restaurant-recycling/
It’s about how sometimes recycling projects can be scams because no one is actually checking where the materials are being taken. After all, they could just be going to the landfill and we would have no idea. We talked about a certain business in town doing that, so I thought this was particularly interesting. I guess we just need to be careful and keep people accountable for what they say they are doing.
I leave you all with a cute you tube video from Sesame Street. It’s about recycling, and even though it’s not necessarily about city-wide recycling, it made me smile. It made me think about the impact we can have on youth by setting a good example and teaching them at a young age that recycling is the right thing to do.
Sesame Street video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-utd0HRifOw
I have spent some time online looking at what other recycling programs cities have. I have included short blurbs provided on the websites that I have listed. It was difficult to find specific programs that are a joint effort of the local university and city governments, but I will continue to look. If anyone knows of any, please let me know! Each of the links will send you to a website that has much more information than would be necessary for this blog, including outreach and educational efforts. Looking over my research more, I probably need to find more programs that are in cities of comparable size to Manhattan. Several of the programs I looked into were for bigger cities, which probably have a bigger budget to work with.
http://www.ucitymo.org/index.asp?nid=62 – University City, MO
As a part of the Neighborhood Services Program, several fee-based programs have been implemented to accommodate residents with special recycling collection needs. The Special Door-to-Door Recycling Collection Program allows residents to pay an annual fee (in addition to regular refuse billing) for a special pickup of recycling materials from recycling carts at the door or agreed upon location.
http://recycling.colorado.edu/ – University of Colorado
“CU Recycling operates as a partnership between students (University of Colorado Student Union) and the administration (Facilities Management). The UCSU Environmental Center conducts procedural training and promotions, processes collected recyclables, and oversees contracts for marketing of recyclables. Facilities Management collects from and provides recycling containers in campus buildings; the Department of Housing provides for infrastructure and assists with outreach in the halls. Students learn the recycling business through volunteer work, work-study employment, or while earning academic credit.”
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/recycling.htm – Austin, TX
Who Must Provide Onsite Recycling (City-wide Ordinance)
Apartments and Multi-Family Communities within the city limits with 100 units or more.
Businesses within the city limits with 100 employees or more onsite.
Office Buildings within the city limits with 100 employees or more onsite.
http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/recycle/Curbside.html – St. Louis, MO
Thanks to generous support from the St. Louis-Jefferson Solid Waste Management District, the City of St. Louis is able to offer financial assistance to 3,174 households with the cost of curbside recycling service. For one year of service, the resident pays a portion of the annual fee while the Refuse Division utilizes grant funding to cover the remainder of the cost.
http://www.kcmo.org/pubworks.nsf/web/recyclefirst – Kansas City, MO
KC Recycles is Kansas City’s curbside recycling and household waste disposal program. By recycling, residents can recover reusable materials from the waste stream and reduce waste disposal costs. KC Recycles now collects recyclables every week on the same day trash is collected. Recycling is voluntary and residents can set their recyclables out every week or on an as-needed basis. In 2006, KC Recycles collected approximately 19,000 tons of material.
http://www.ulsf.org/ – I found this site to be interesting and provides links to different articles for what universities are doing in addition to recycling efforts. Basically, I just thought it was neat.
The Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF) supports sustainability as a critical focus of teaching, research, operations and outreach at colleges and universities worldwide through publications, research, and assessment. ULSF is the Secretariat for signatories of the Talloires Declaration (1990), which has been signed by over 350 university presidents and chancellors worldwide.
–current recycling center for campus–
For my lived experience, I will be doing a combination of the “Informed Citizenship” and “What One Person Can Do,” options. I will first be conducting research on other cities that have successful recycling programs, preferably college towns that work with the associated university. Then I will create three proposals to bring to a City Commission meeting to give options for how Manhattan can have a city-wide recycling program. Along the way, I plan on meeting with the Mayor, City Manager, and perhaps City Commissioners.
This will directly relate to our class for several reasons, the first being our most recent discussions on junkyards and toxic waste sites. I must admit that I don’t know where the nearest junkyard or toxic waste site is to us, but I think that if we don’t do something now, we could see a problem happening in the future. I also think that this goes back to some of the ideas we covered back in February regarding different ways to effect change and the idea that grassroots work is essential in sparking a sustainable change in a community. This project may also involve mainstream sustainable development, as it could affect policy change. I will address this politically, with a strong knowledge base, by working with the community, and expressing how I feel personally. I will try to be artistic…that’s where I need your help!
While we do have a campus recycling program, it does not cover much of campus and our current facility is literally falling apart (see pictures). Last semester, our university received a D+ rating on our report card from the Sustainability Endowments Institute. You can see how we and other schools scored at http://www.endowmentinstitute.org/sustainability/profiles2008.html. The list is fairly extensive of things we’re doing wrong, but I feel like campus-wide recycling is something we as students can do something about. It’s embarrassing that we’re doing so poorly, especially when other schools have incredible programs. Why not have a city-wide program as well? I believe there is an interest for it and is crucial to lessen our impact on the world we live in.
Enter student body elections. One of the platforms I ran on was creating a more sustainable K-State. In presentations to student groups, my running mate and I would particularly bring up the opportunity we have with recycling. Lots of people had questions and were excited about what we were hoping to do. Since it wasn’t part of our platform, our instructor encouraged me to incorporate a city aspect for my project. I already feel passionately about creating change on our campus, so why not reach out to our community? After all, we don’t live in a bubble! I will write about it in my next entry, but we are in the process of receiving funds to create a new recycling center that will hopefully be a joint project between the univeristy and City. More to come soon!
–pictures from inside the facility–
