Mandatory recycling coming to Providence

Ooooo! my favorite part (besides that there’s no website or contact information) is that part of the plan to “Green Up Providence” is to create mass amounts of junk mail!

The 20% goal is to have 20% of the trash tonnage be recycling not 20% compliance with the recycling regulations. They’re going to enforce 100% compliance with the recycling regulation through their “No Recycling Bin, No Trash Pickup” policy.

Only #1 and #2 plastics are taken and not even all #1 and #2 plastics only bottles. #5 plastic can be recycled at your local Whole Foods Market.

NYC has a much stricter policy where you must use clear trash bags and if they see any glass, plastic, or paper in the bag they won’t take it and subject you to fines that start at $50.

Many towns are WAY behind us. I came from Branford, CT. They STILL cannot recycle plastic soda bottles (#2?). In fact, the only plastic bottles they can recycle is milk cartons and only the translucent ones (not the Hood light blocking ones). We can recycle a whole lot more here, including mayonnaise jars, laundry detergent bottles, etc. Branford has been recycling since I was a kid and the rules they use now are the rules they had since they started probably about 20 years ago. Providence isn’t that bad.

What I’d like to see are recycle bins downtown for bottles and cans next to every trash can on the sidewalks, especially downtown.

Anyone know where you can get those stickers for your trash cans? I don’t want to buy recycle bins and they’ve been picking them up just fine with the bins I’ve been using (the ones that were left here by the previous owners).

I’m so glad we have a private firm picking up trash here at casa KD1S. Don’t have to separate anything.

100% recycling is unobtainable given the current pick up system. The 20% target is mandated by the state on municipalities so they can avoid additional tonnage fees.

The current “quota” system as someone pointed out is based on trash tonnage for residential pickup only. The homeowner decides what is recyclable and what is not. That’s why the percentages are set so low. Single stream recycling is by far a better solution and can be hi-tech.

“Magnets and electric currents separate different metals, while infrared lasers sort different kinds of paper and plastic containers from one another, based on the light wavelength each type of material emits.”

From:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/conservation-issues/recycling-reality.htm/printable

Its unfortunate that RIRRC wasted so much money on a “transfer station” instead of investing in technology to move us closer to single stream. This has to done at a state level.

If everyone’s trash goes to Johnston, isn’t this one of those things where we should be taking advantage of our diminutiveness? Why do all 39 municipalities need a solid waste policy? This should be a state issue. Combine resources then we can afford single stream. We could be leading the nation instead of playing catch up.

I heard a totally unsubstantiated rumor that the RIRRC grinds up most of the plastic and ‘sells’ it to the landfill to use as a ‘cap’ for the daily waste. That way they can say that they ‘recycled’ and that they ‘sold the recyclables at a profit.’

I’d like to see what I saw in Oakland, CA but a step further:

City-provided trash/compost/recyclable barrels are the -only- barrels that will be picked up. The twist would be that you would pay a lot more for a ‘full size’ trash barrel, the standard-issue would be quite small. Barrels would have to be issued with your address branded onto them to prevent theft.

letter on my barrels on trash day said, we will not pick up trash unless 2 blue recycle bins are placed out for each barrel. thats nice almost a week of full trash barrels sitting on sidewalk, maybe a notice before the day of would have been nice.

This should work out great i live in a 3 family house with people who have trouble getting the trash into the barrel never mind geting them to fill 2 blue bins per apartment. (by the way we only have 1 blue bin for the 3 family house)

Maybe they should start with getting home owners and slum lords to clean up all the glass and trash in front of their homes before worrying about separating the stuff that somehow made it into a barrel in this extremely dirty city (its always nice to take my dogs for a walk and have to constantly avoid stepping in broken glass (thanx pc students) and drag them away from garbage on the ground). Let’s start enfocing laws already in place before we make new ones no one will follow and clean up this dirty city.

I do not use the “official” recycle bins at my house. I don’t even have “RECYCLE” written on the bins. It’s pretty obvious that one is for paper/cardboard and the other for bottles/cans based on what is in them. That being said, the official bins are only $5 a pop. You have to go to Public Works to get them, but you probably can’t find a similar bin cheaper in a store. And you definitely do not have to fill those bins, just have something in them. Sometimes, I only have 2 bottles in them (I save beer bottles for homebrew).

I received either a letter in the mail or a door hanging on my house explaining the new policy. I got it about a month ago.

While I think the city should have done a better job spreading the word and giving more notice (and perhaps putting those notes on the barrels while at the same time collecting the trash for a few cycles before leaving the trash), I do agree with the general idea behind this. As a city/state/country/world, we need to do more recycling. This is one way to do force people to do it. This will also save the city some money, which is necessary at this point (though I have other less popular ideas for saving the city and state money).

People who have a hard time getting trash into the barrel is no excuse. I think there’s even a city ordinance that all trash has to be in the green barrel and the top has to close properly and not be stuck open. I’ve heard of people getting fined for that.

Now if only I can get Academy Supermarket from putting their stupid sales flyers in door handles that end up getting blown out by the wind and littering the streets of lower Elmhurst. But they’re probably too cheap to actually mail them out or pay for real advertisements.

This is insane. The idea that for every barrel of trash, two bins also have to be out even if they are empty. For starters, all the empty bins will be stolen overnight since it is almost impossible for people to get the blue and green bins.

back in the day Groundwork Providence had a grant to set up shop at several locations across the city and distribute free bins. Every saturday they were in a different location, usually a school parking lot and they gave out truckloads of bins with proof of residency. And even then, implementing curbside recycling was a challenge. Now the city doesn’t give out bins, and won’t pick up your trash if you don’t have one? It seems there’s a disconnect here. and it is unfortunate because it will really get people to sour on recycling.

I wish we had done this all at once when the BGB’s came out. If we could have converted our old trash cans to recycling bins when the BGB’s came out, that would have been ideal. Our old trash barrels are long gone now, and we are left with too many BGB’s, not enough recycle bins, and not enough leeway in the law to allow us to have a sensible solution (i.e. have a few big recycle bins instead of a dozen small ones).

FWIW – I did receive a postcard in the mail explaining the program and a bi-lingual bumper sticker was placed on my garbage can explaining the program. As far as I could tell, every can in my neighborhood also received a sticker. I understand that the the implementation has not been perfect, and I did not personnaly witness any outreach by officials. However, if you assume that most households received the postcard and bumper sticker, you would think that most people should have been aware and at least called the city to clarify what the new program required.

Like Ward 13 maybe?

this must be doing wonders for the rat problem.