Recycling Today

I've posted many times before about the "real issue" with recycling. Spoiler alert - it has a whole lot more to do with who is doing it than the items in need of it. We're presently feeling pretty deflated - we'd love some real suggestions on how to fix this.

Let me give you a little back story:

Right around the time COVID was at its peak, recycling markets were also doing pretty terribly. Due to health and safety as well as overall costs, a large number of public recycling programs were being cut or closed entirely. Recycling is what we do so we wanted to try and step in and provide a solution for residents who no longer had recycling access. We decided to ramp up our residential collection bins onsite and provide this service free of charge.

We purchased some bins and to ensure that we were setting things up for success we invested in clearly worded labels to avoid recycling confusion - we had signs made and posted them. Our bins received an overwhelming reception - residents were dumping material constantly, 24 hours a day.

Unfortunately, the material they were dumping did not follow the signage we had posted - large amounts of garbage needed to be cleaned up almost daily. Requests to keep material only inside bins were ignored. We were greeted with piles and heaps of material strewn on top, beside, around, and behind the bins. We posted educational videos and information on social media about keeping the area tidy and about items that were and were not recyclable. We invested in lights for the area and cameras to try and catch and educate those who were dropping material that did not fit within our recycling program. We spent hours watching videos and attempting to track down individuals who must have "mistakenly" dropped that sofa, dining room table, or grill as recycling. Education and quality recycling has been our goal but it seems despite our efforts, we've been missing the target. We alerted residents that if we couldn't collect clean recycling without all the continued garbage and clean-up costs incurred we may need to stop providing this free service.

In late November our company needed to suspend residential drop-off. We underwent system upgrades and could not process material. We also did not have room in our building or lot while the equipment was being installed, moved, and relocated. We posted on social media, google, alerted callers, and posted signage where the bins were once placed. We continued to be flooded with the material - despite no bins being in place. Residents threw bags on the ground, in parking spaces, gardens, entrances, and piled them on top of the new and old equipment we were moving. Logistics, office, and other team members needed to confront residents and inform them in person that they could not just drive into the lot and dump material. Although some residents were understanding a majority was extremely combative and angry. Our team was yelled at and given an extremely difficult time about their frustration that we would stop this service and how inconvenient it was to them.

We expected to replace the residential recycling bins late last week as we got our single-stream equipment online and running. As we work to clear the space where the bin should go it is quickly refilled by residents who are dumping "recycling" in our lot. As angry residents continue to drop by to explain their displeasure about the free service (that has cost us a lot) to get garbage in place of what should be recycling (that we pay to get rid of) we are left uncertain about the future of residential single-stream collection at our facility.

This example sums up the current issue with recycling today. Boy, we'd love ideas on how to make it better - our futures deserve it.