Melissa Bailey Photo
East Rockers like Heidi Richard will be the next to upgrade to bigger recycling bins, after squeaking out a victory over the East Shore in a 16-week-long contest.
Richard (at left in photo, with East Rock Alderman Matt Smith and Yale recycling chief CJ May) was among several recycling enthusiasts in the so-called SoHu section of East Rock who helped spread the word over the last few months about the competition.
From Oct. 18 to Jan. 28, the city kept close watch over how much Richard and her neighbors threw into the recycling bin compared to other folks around town. Neighborhoods were divided up into five teams based on which day of the week their garbage gets picked up. Teams were offered a challenge and a reward: The team with the highest recycling rate by the end of the time period will follow Westville as the next in line to upgrade to the city’s new way of tossing out trash.
The results came in this week: SoHu’s Tuesday route squeaked out a win by a margin of 0.35 percent, according to Christine Eppstein Tang, the city’s sustainability chief.
The Tuesday route includes East Rock’s Ward 9, Wooster Square, Prospect Hill, Dixwell, Newhallville, and part of Beaver Hill. The Tuesday team showed a 10.42 percent recycling rate, barely pulling ahead of the Friday route, which came in at 10.07 percent. The Friday route winds through the East Shore and Fair Haven Heights. The recycling rate is the percent of recycled matter compared to the total curbside refuse in those neighborhoods.
The Thursday route, which includes most of East Rock’s Ward 10, Fair Haven, and Quinnipiac Meadows, came in third with 7.07 percent. The Wednesday route, which covers The Hill, West River, and Dwight, came in last with 3.6 percent.
To find out which route is yours, click here for a map, or use the city’s lookup tool.
The recycling rates remain far below the city’s goal, which is to reach 30 percent curbside residential recycling by 2012. To hit that goal — and save taxpayer money along the way — the city plans to roll out a new trash system to every household by the spring of 2012.
Folks along the Tuesday route will be the next in line to make the switch: They’ll get new 48-gallon brown bins on the curbs outside their homes by April, Tang said. The new bins will be used for trash; people at those homes can then convert their 96-gallon blue trash toters into recycling containers.
The Tuesday crew will follow in the footsteps of the Monday route-dwellers, who already got the new toters last August.
The simple switch has already done wonders along the Monday route, Tang said. The Monday route, which includes Westville and parts of West Hills and Beaver Hills, destroyed the competition with a 30.01 percent recycling rate; however, that team wasn’t competing for the prize.
Diverting waste from the trash to the recycling bin not only saves space in landfills but saves the city money. That’s because the city pays to haul away trash, but gets paid for recycling tonnage.
Using bigger recycling bins “has been linked to dramatically increased waste diversion,” Tang wrote in an email. When Westville got the new toters, its recycling rate almost tripled in just a few weeks, she said.
The savings are already pouring in, according to Tang: From Aug. 20 to Dec. 31, the city saved $33,400 due to increased recycling along the Monday route. That means the city has already recouped the $20,000 it paid for the toters.
SoHu’s Secret
East Rock Alderman Matt Smith welcomed his neighborhood’s chance to upgrade its curbside pickup. Smith threw himself into the recycling competition, advertising it on flyers associated with his aldermanic campaign. He said he delivered 20 little blue bins to neighbors who needed more capacity for their recycling.
Heidi Richard, the unofficial SoHu recycling czar on Pleasant Street, helped spread the word to her tenants and neighbors at block watch meetings. She said the SoHu email network and strong sense of community helped to raise awareness.
“Community-based social marketing is really effective” in raising recycling rates, added CJ May, who showed up on a chilly Friday morning to talk trash at Richard’s recycling bins. May is the recycling chief at Yale. While his Goatville neighborhood didn’t win the contest, he gave some insight into the factors behind East Rock’s relatively high performance.
“Communities that are less stressed about urban difficulties” have more “liberty to be able to think about recycling,” he offered. “We have the liberty to focus on doing something good for the environment instead of worrying about getting mugged.”
Alderman Smith said his next campaign will be to spread the recycling fever to large apartment buildings. The city last year approved a new policy to help businesses and apartment buildings recycle — and generate more revenue for the city. For an annual fee of $225, the city’s Department of Public Works will pick up recycling from commercial properties and from apartment buildings with more than six units.
No Need To Wait
Meanwhile, New Haveners in other neighborhoods “don’t have to wait” for the new toters to help the city boost recycling rates, Tang said.
The city switched last year to single-stream recycling, meaning that residents no longer have to sort their recyclables in the small blue bins. (Click here for a list of recyclable materials.)
If one blue bin is not enough to hold your recycling, you can ask for another one by calling the Department of Public Works at 203 – 946-7700.
The city also accepts electronic waste, including old computers, at its recycling center on Middletown Avenue. Click here for the hours.
And people in other neighborhoods that lost the contest will have another chance to prove their mettle: The city plans to run another friendly competition to see who gets the next round of toters in the summer.