2008 Woodie Awards
Incentives needed to boost recycling
Grits and Greens
Christopher Vincent
Issue date: 10/17/07 Section: Opinion
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In your heart of hearts, you know that beneath all those good intentions is a whole lot of laziness. That's why this town - and especially the students in it - doesn't recycle a large portion of what it tosses.
Fayetteville recycles 11 percent of the trash produced by residents and businesses and composts another 11 percent, according to the solid waste reduction annual report released last year. While the number was better than I expected, I realized this leaves 78 percent of our waste heading into the landfill.
What is left for the city's government to do to reduce how much it pours into a quickly dwindling landfill space? They can create incentives, which is exactly what Brian Pugh, Fayetteville's waste reduction coordinator, says the city has done. The city charges higher rates for more or larger trash bins, motivating folks to make use of their recycling boxes.
While this might work for houses, Fayetteville does not provide any direct recycling services to apartments, where 45 percent of the Fayetteville population lives. If 55 percent of the population of Fayetteville recycles 22 percent of Fayetteville's waste, couldn't the other 45 percent boost the recycling rate up to at least 30 percent? It is not as easy to provide incentives to apartment dwellers, Pugh explained.
Recycling in apartments requires the pale troglodytes to extract themselves from their white-walled boxes to deposit our recyclables in a common receptacle. There would be no way to keep track of who left how much trash or to give even mere brownie points for recycling.
No matter how many obligatory viewings of "Inconvenient Truth" were held, still only a small portion of the population - that group of us who compulsively obey rules and always raise our hands when the teacher asks a question - will respond. No incentives bring little participation.
Pugh also mentioned that the almighty dollar also lends a hand to maintaining the lack of recycling at apartments. Such a system would require the city to buy four new trucks for $160,000 each and employ four new drivers at a cost of $37,000 each year in salaries and benefits. The first year of the program would cost the city $795,000.
Fayetteville recycles 11 percent of the trash produced by residents and businesses and composts another 11 percent, according to the solid waste reduction annual report released last year. While the number was better than I expected, I realized this leaves 78 percent of our waste heading into the landfill.
What is left for the city's government to do to reduce how much it pours into a quickly dwindling landfill space? They can create incentives, which is exactly what Brian Pugh, Fayetteville's waste reduction coordinator, says the city has done. The city charges higher rates for more or larger trash bins, motivating folks to make use of their recycling boxes.
While this might work for houses, Fayetteville does not provide any direct recycling services to apartments, where 45 percent of the Fayetteville population lives. If 55 percent of the population of Fayetteville recycles 22 percent of Fayetteville's waste, couldn't the other 45 percent boost the recycling rate up to at least 30 percent? It is not as easy to provide incentives to apartment dwellers, Pugh explained.
Recycling in apartments requires the pale troglodytes to extract themselves from their white-walled boxes to deposit our recyclables in a common receptacle. There would be no way to keep track of who left how much trash or to give even mere brownie points for recycling.
No matter how many obligatory viewings of "Inconvenient Truth" were held, still only a small portion of the population - that group of us who compulsively obey rules and always raise our hands when the teacher asks a question - will respond. No incentives bring little participation.
Pugh also mentioned that the almighty dollar also lends a hand to maintaining the lack of recycling at apartments. Such a system would require the city to buy four new trucks for $160,000 each and employ four new drivers at a cost of $37,000 each year in salaries and benefits. The first year of the program would cost the city $795,000.
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