A green revenue stream

Back last summer my city hosted a neighborhood picnic to allow residents to meet and interact with city officials. This was the first such event in the 27 years I've lived here. Granted, the picnic food wasn't much -- a hot dog and a bag of chips. But I was able to see the plans for the redesigned intersection near me (one where I need to make a left turn to get to my church and occasionally had to sit through 5 cycles of the light to make that turn -- all better now), and sign up to participate in Mission Green, an effort to make city operations more environmentally sound. Alas, all the Mission Green meetings have been at 6:00 on nights I had bell rehearsal at 7:00.

The mayor and the head of Mission Green made a big deal of getting all supporters to the City Council meeting in which the mayor presented the new plans for curbside recycling. He wanted to show the Council there was a lot of support for the issue. So I went this evening for the first half hour (before leaving for bell rehearsal). The place was packed, with 90 residents inside the chambers and another 15 standing outside. I can't say how this compares to other Council meetings because this is the first I've attended.

We've had curbside recycling before, but the revenue stream was all wonky, so it didn't work well. The main problem is that those who participated were billed for the privilege and had to pay that bill directly to the trash company rather than part of city taxes. Not surprisingly, only 3% of the households bothered. The trash company eventually gave up because they would forget to collect too many of the bins when they came around a second time for the recyclables.

This time looks to be different. Though separate special containers are used, residents don't need to buy them. Even better, each container has a barcode and when the mechanism on the truck hoists the container it also weighs it and scans the code. Residents get a refund from the Recycle Bank based on the amount of stuff recycled. The refund should average $240 (yearly?) with a cap at $550. The only irritant is the refund isn't cash, but in the form of coupons redeemable at stores in the city. At least the revenue stream is in the right direction. Council will vote on it at their meeting in two weeks and the containers could be given to residents by the June 1 with the first collection two weeks later.