FOCUS: CITY RECYCLING
Buffalo seeks to boost its poor rate of recycling
Residents’ anemic response to blue boxes is spurring officials to motivate better, try mini-totes that don’t require sorting
Something is wrong with Buffalo’s recycling program, and city officials are scrambling to fix it.
Only about 9 percent of the city’s waste is being recycled by no more than a third of all households. According to a 2007 city study, participation can dip as low as 8 percent in some neighborhoods.
By comparison, many neighboring localities are recycling between 15 percent and 52 percent of their waste.
The bad news doesn’t stop there. Buffalo has gone backward in recent years; its recycling rate has dropped from a high of 14 percent in the mid- 1990s.
“There’s got to be something we’re missing,” lamented Common Council President David A. Franczyk, a longtime recycling advocate.
The renewed effort to improve Buffalo’s anemic recycling record isn’t being driven by only environmental concerns. It’s also about money. Every ton of trash that is recycled instead of being dumped in landfills puts about $80 in city coffers, including fuel savings tied to transporting waste. If Buffalo can increase its recycling rate from 9,000 tons a year to 15,000 tons, it would save nearly $500,000 annually, said Andrew Goldstein, the environmental activist who oversees recycling for the city.
That’s why Buffalo’s recycling program will likely be getting a massive makeover. City officials are learning from the success strategies of other localities to try to boost participation.
If things go as planned, the little blue boxes that line curbs might be replaced by totes — smaller versions of the wheeled containers city residents currently use for garbage. Residents would be able to toss paper, plastic, glass and other recyclables into a single container without having to separate them.
The totes would give residents nearly four times more space for recyclables than the blue boxes. They would also address a common gripe about recycling.
“People don’t like it when stuff they put in their bin blows around or gets wet,” said city Public Works Commissioner Steven J. Stepniak. “The totes have lids, so you won’t see the kind of debris that we see with the bins.”
It’s called single-stream recycling, and it’s gaining steam across the nation. The theory goes like this: Make the process as simple as possible, and more people will recycle.
It’s also easier for collection crews who no longer have to perform curbside sorting tasks. Everything can be dumped into standard trucks, and the refuse is sorted later — after it reaches a recycling center.
The single-stream approach can boost recycling rates by at least 20 percent, Goldstein said. When Denver launched its program, recycling rates rose by more than 40 percent. In Baltimore, crews have been picking up 19 percent more trash since it introduced single-stream recycling in January.
Closer to home, the Town of Amherst went to single-stream recycling in late 2007. It’s early yet, but Refuse Control Officer Robert F. Klinko said the town is already starting to see a slight increase in recycling.
“So far, so good. But there has been some confusion on the part of residents who see their recycling going into a garbage truck,” he said.
As time goes on, Klinko added, more residents will realize it’s just the latest trend in recycling.
Buffalo hopes to test the single-stream matrix in up to five neighborhoods next year. If the pilot program succeeds, Stepniak envisions a citywide program by 2010.
“It seems to be working throughout the country,” he said. “It seems to be the best bang for the money.”
When it comes to recycling, Buffalo needs all the bang it can get. Mayor Byron W. Brown has made it clear to subordinates that he wants to see noticeable improvements.
So big changes are planned, including an aggressive outreach effort that will include advertising and closer partnerships with schools. City officials think that if youngsters can be turned into recycling cheerleaders, more households will get with the program. Advocates are considering sponsoring contests among schools or streets where groups would vie for top recycling honors.
Pedestrians will also be encouraged to recycle as special trash containers start popping up in more neighborhoods and at special events. Parts of the Elmwood strip already have newfangled trash receptacles that accommodate recyclables. Goldstein would like to expand the initiative, but he noted that it’s not a cheap proposition.
“Those containers cost close to a thousand dollars apiece, so it’s an [issue] we have to look at carefully,” he said.
Many of Buffalo’s suburban counterparts have relatively high participation rates. Amherst, for example, recycles nearly 52 percent of its waste. However, this includes yard waste, and Buffalo’s composting program is lackluster at best. There’s talk of setting up a city-owned composting site that would be run by Buffalo’s Public Works Department. But even if the plans pan out, it would take at least a year to set up such an operation.
The head of the private company the city pays to handle recycling believes that Buffalo can boost its numbers by making some of the proposed changes. “We see the program as having a lot of room to grow in,” Allied Waste Services General Manager Joseph Scaffidi recently told city lawmakers.
Buffalo has some catching-up to do. While cities often have lower recycling rates than their suburban counterparts, the disparities between Buffalo and smaller communities in Erie County are sizable. Gary C. Carrel, Erie County’s recycling coordinator, released new 2007 data this month.
The Village of East Aurora recycles 24 percent of its curbside waste, and the number rises to 38 percent when recycled yard waste is included. In West Seneca, the recycling rate approaches 27 percent — and this doesn’t include yard waste. Elma recycles nearly 16 percent of its waste, and the Town of Tonawanda is at 17.3 percent.
If residents could grasp the pocketbook impact of recycling, some think participation rates would rise.
The city has been exploring a rewards program for recyclers. A Pennsylvania company, RecycleBank, works with localities to run a program that offers residents coupons for discounts at hundreds of businesses based on how much they recycle. If people recycled everything they could, they would likely earn about $400 in rewards each year under the program.
“You have to motivate people to do the right thing,” said RecycleBank Chief Executive Officer Ron Gonen.
But any parent knows that motivation can come from a stick as well as a carrot. Some cities aggressively enforce recycling rules, issuing tickets to violators, Stepniak said. Buffalo has never tried a get-tough approach, and officials have made it clear they want to try other strategies before considering fines for people who refuse to recycle.
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