CitiesGoGreen - February 2009 - (Page 11) We’re Taking Steps 100% Recycling Participation Saves Money One village cuts landfill costs and doubles its recycling volume in two months. F or more than ten years, Orange Village, Ohio, has had a curbside recycling program. With about 3,500 residents in some 1,500 homes, our small village has aggressively promoted recycling through many programs, including curbside separated household materials (e.g., newspaper, plastic, glass, cans, paper, etc.) and round-ups of household hazardous waste, tires, phone books, computers and cell phones. We also collect leaves and branches during the summer and fall, which are returned to the residents as mulch and wood chips for their yards in the spring. While these programs have resulted in a significant volume of recycled materials, as in many communities the percentage of household waste being recycled was rather low, at about 10-15% on average. Estimates of recycling participation were also lower than desired, at about 60%. With ever-increasing waste disposal costs and to increase participation and focus on the household waste stream, Orange Village implemented a new recycling program in 2008. The first step was adjusting how the Village paid for contracted waste disposal, which meant splitting the payment into two parts. One is a per-household fee and the second is a disposal fee. There is no fee for picking up recyclable materials. Next, we needed an easy system. We believed many people avoided recycling because it was too much effort to separate all the waste streams and remember what could and could not be recycled. To overcome this obstacle, the Village worked with its disposal vendor to allow all recyclables to be co-mingled in a single cart. The final step was purchasing a 64-gallon recycling cart for each residence, in which all the recyclable materials would be co-mingled. The cart has a label saying what can be recycled. achieved the two largest single months of household waste recycling tonnage in Orange Village history. In addition, recycling participation has increased to nearly 100%. Just drive down the street on pickup day and you will see all the blue recycling carts at the curb. What may be most noteworthy, however, is that this program pays for itself. In the first month of implementation Orange Village diverted 35% of its waste stream into the recycling containers, resulting in a projected cost savings of over $10,000 per year from lower disposal costs at the landfill. We expect to recover the cost of purchasing the recycling containers in five to seven years, or sooner. With these results, we encourage other communities to follow our model. Our experience shows that besides being the right thing to do, recycling can result in real cost savings for your community, savings that will increase in the future.v Dan B. Brown is the Council President of Orange Village and President of Partners Environmental Consulting, Inc., a full- service environmental consulting firm with practice areas in brownfields, due diligence, compliance litigation and sustainability. Outstanding results After only two months our new program has doubled the amount of recycling as a percent of waste disposed and we have What are you doing in your community or position to make a difference? What would help you get started or move forward? Tell us about it in 500 words or less. Email to Steps@CitiesGoGreen.com 11 February/March 2009 http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/february-2009/were-taking-steps/100-recycling-participation-saves-money http://citiesgogreen.com/issues/february-2009/were-taking-steps/100-recycling-participation-saves-money http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2483/82/ http://www.CitiesGoGreen.com
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