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Mayor Coleman and other city and community leaders unveiled their recommendations for a comprehensive curbside recycling program today. The program was put together utilizing information gathered from a recent community survey to gauge public opinion on various types of recycling options.
The proposed plan calls for an alternating bi-weekly rotation between yard waste collection and recycling collection. The proposed recycling bin would be a 65-gallon cart, slightly smaller than the standard 90-gallon trash cart currently used for residential households. Recycling waste collection would include paper, plastic, glass, and metal.
“I want to commend our residents for taking the time to give us the feedback we need to put together a true comprehensive curbside recycling program for 2012,” Mayor Coleman said during today’s announcement event. “In the meantime I ask our residents to recycle today through our voluntary subscription program or our drop-box program.”
An additional community briefing on the new recycling proposal will take place at City Hall tonight at 5:30pm. Details on that event can be found HERE.
More information can be found online at RecycleColumbus.org.
I would love to see this – we currently subscribe to Rumpke but a move toward city-wide would make a much greater impact! I always like UA’s model – growing up we put out 1, maybe 2 bags of trash a week with a family of 9 because you paid for trash and recycling was free.
I’ve been a subscriber for years, but would love a bigger bin and to see all my neighbors involved. I also think taking yard waste to every-other-week is fine, it should be just right.
I suspect we’ll hear howling about this, but it really is time Cbus got citywide recycling. It is so easy for each family to do their part.
help me out here – how big is a 65 gallon bin? to me, that sounds huge, and i’m wondering how I’d get it to the curb (we have a STEEP yard with many steps).
We typically fill 1-2 red rumpke bins/week but those can be managed with separate trips. With every-other-week service, i would need a lot of capacity, but I don’t know if I can heft a huge ass bin by myself. I might have to hire a kid to take my recycling to the curb!
Anyone know if there would there be separate bins for yard waste, or would we be able to keep using bags? I don’t have space to keep lots of new huge bins.
It’s about time!
@dirtgirl – I could be totally wrong, but I’m envisioning having the recycle bins be in the alleys (at least where I live) with the current cans…. with the volume of goods, and everyone being involved, they’ll need a full sized truck for the operation. I agree it would stink to have to lug them to the front curb – a lot of houses have tough front curb access. That’s the whole purpose o’ the alleys, after all!
The one on the left is a 65 gallon bin
Sweet. Now we just have to build public support for it. (Easier said than done.) 65 gallons seems big, but I think we could fill that up every two weeks, easily. I hope the city considers doing the yard waste weekly during the late fall when leaf bags pile up quickly. Now if we could only get curbside composting! (I know, I know….)
dirtgirl Says: help me out here – how big is a 65 gallon bin?
This big:
That 65 gallon can would be a lot easier to handle in an alley (where available) unfortunately they term the service “curbside” recycling. Might be a good item to ask about at the meeting.
I’m happy to see this movement progress, regardless it’s imperfections. I love UA’s concept as it gets to the heart of the matter in reducing waste and encourage less packaging, etc. Let’s see where we end up for step one and continue progressing from there.
Personally, I’m excited about this effort, but was discussing with a friend earlier today and share some of her concerns with enforcement. What’s going to stop people from continuing to throw recycles in the trash? There’s a mindset shift that comes along with sorting recycling, and it happens inside the house, not at the curb on pickup day. Hopefully there will be some sort of penalty for non-sorting that can push this angle? Otherwise, I’d be concerned that even with free bins for everyone, adoption rates aren’t going to be anywhere near what we’d all like them to be.
If anything, this is still a step in the right direction. Perhaps it will just take time more than anything for people who have never recycled to grow used to doing it.
@JedThorp – In Toronto, residents put 4 bins on the curb: trash, recycling, yard waste and “green bin” (organic waste):
http://www.toronto.ca/greenbin/index.htm
My cousins in Toronto said it took a while to get used to this level of sorting but don’t mind it now.
Last I heard this program will not include apartments, condos or any place that currently has shared 300-gallon trash bins.
Anyone hear anything different?
I really would love if Columbus would get rid of the 300 gallon bins. I swear to god, homeless people search through every single thing I throw away. Not to mention all the suburbanites that come to my neighborhood to throw away stuff for free. Columbus really needs to get their act together with trash/recycling. The talk is nice, but I would like to see some actual changes in my neighborhood.
I am happy about this move. However, I did take the survey and I voted for the 35 gallon bin. I’m now concerned about storing both the garbage green monster and now my giant recycling can. Oh well, I am REALLY happy this is finally happening. Been a long time subscriber to curbside Rumpke, so I guess this will be a savings for our household eventually.
Ditto on the 300 gallon bins. First, the tops have all been ripped off, so they fill up with water like crazy, which then fill the trash trucks with water, which then leads to leachate leaking all over my neighborhood…mmm…that smells good. Second, because of their massive volume, people end up putting car bumpers, air conditioners, tree branches and all sorts of other crap in there. Third, because they are “shared bins” people put all sorts of things they shouldn’t in there (car tires, yard waste.)
@JedThorp
You may want to report those cans to the city via 311 (http://311.columbus.gov). I’ve not reported bad cans, but the City has been responsive to several other requests that I have made.
I just hope this means that yard waste will start getting picked up at our house. I don’t know if the trucks don’t drive down our street, or they aren’t looking for it in front of our place since we don’t regularly throw away yard waste, but we have to call 311 EVERY SINGLE TIME we put yard waste out at the curb. Otherwise it sits there for weeks on end. Ugh.
As for the 300 gallon bins, how does the city go about making decisions on who gets real trash cans and who doesn’t? Based on the concentration of multi-units in the area? I’m just tired of seeing old mattresses in the alley.
This is a great step in the right direction and I agree with Walker re: change of mindset. I know in Seattle the trashman has the ability to assess fines if residents don’t sort their trash appropriately – this is obviously one end of the spectrum and I guess we’ll have to see how it goes here but something to keep in mind I suppose…if only as a source of reference….