Back before caring about the environment was a fad, my family was recycling. Perhaps because it’s one of the few words you can rhyme with “Michael,” taking care of cans, jars, and various other recyclable materials was one of my household jobs for a long time. In those dark ages, I had to fully rinse everything and peel of the labels before we could haul our amassed bags to a self-sort truck parked in one of the local shopping centers. This changed pretty quickly though, as Howard County was ahead of the curve and handing out blue bins and starting curbside pickup early on. Today, you can toss nearly everything into a recycling dumpster and the county smiles and says, “We’ll take it from here.”
It seems that one of the biggest incentives for recycling is convenience. If somebody is picking everything up for you, there’s not much to prevent someone from collecting it and leaving it outside. Apartment complexes seem to have a harder time getting with the program: Both in Baltimore and now in Loma Linda, our residence has been neglected even as the houses nearby get pickup.
Unlike in Maryland, California has attempted to apply a monetary incentive for people to recycle in the form of a tax. Whenever we buy things in bottles or other obviously recyclable material, we’re charged a “California Refund Value,” a portion of which is returned when we bring them back for recycling. On the surface, that seems great – recycle stuff, get money. Indeed, there are often shady-looking types rooting through our dumpsters in the hopes of finding and turning in these now-valuable items.
However, there isn’t a “cash back” option for every recyclable material, which means this scheme often has the opposite effect of disincentivizing the “worthless” items. Indeed, there are places set up right outside our grocery store to collect and pay out for refund items, but if you want to recycle paper or cans, you’ve got to drive a ways to an actual recycling center. All too often I see people throwing out perfectly recyclable things because if they don’t come with the reward, why bother?
Perhaps this is better than not recycling at all, but it seems like it would be more worthwhile to boost support for curbside pickup and processing the way they’ve done back in Howard County. When recycling is easy to the point that sorting involves separating your yard waste and food-contaminated trash from everything else, it’s ridiculously easy and greatly reduces the amount of trash you produce each week.
2 responses to “Residential Recycling”
I think curbside pickup is the logical choice. They did it in New Jersey and they do it in Maryland and it’s worked great in both places – even when I was living in an apartment.
I wish apartment buildings would get included in the curbside. I think other than making it accessible you don’t really need to offer additional incentives, like money.