D.C. Recycling

Reporter: Charles Foster

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Script

HOST: Have you ever wondered what happens to those bottles, cans and newspapers you leave on the curb? If you live in the District of Columbia, the answer is sometimes nothing. they just sit there. Last year, D.C. officials received over four thousand complaints of failed recycling pickups. And now the city is pledging to fix things. Intern Edition's Charlie Foster reports.

Charles Foster: Emma Jenkins lives in a small brick house in Southeast D.C. Every week she would spend time carefully sorting her recyclables. And setting them in the driveway. Only to have them ignored.

EMMA JENKINS: They wouldn't come on time and sometimes the container would stay out here all day. And I don't know whether they passed it by or what.

Residents call District officials everyday to complain about missed recycling pickups. In 2004, the D.C. Council had received enough. They decided the city would take over recycling collection from the private company by 2005. And not only would they change who collected recyclables, they would change how they were collected. Because frankly, a lot of residents just weren't doing the recycling thing. Tom Henderson is the Solid Waste Administrator for the D.C. Department of Public Works, the agency in charge of recycling.

TOM HENDERSON: So we started looking at how are we going to do a better job. And we looked at other parts of the country, down in Virginia, out in California and on the West Coast. The trend is to go to what they call single stream.

CF: Single stream recycling is when residents put all their recyclables into one container to be sorted later at a processing plant. In the current program residents have to separate the paper from the glass, metal and plastic.

Henderson says single stream is easier on residents and recycling collectors. Instead of heaving newspaper bundles or bins of cans to the curb, residents throw all recyclables into one cart and roll it out.

TOM HENDERSON: It's just more convenient, better quality service for the customer. And much easier for the collector and much more humane for the collector and on his back. or her back.

CF: Single stream might cause fewer hernias. But it creates new problems later on in the recycling process. Neil Seldman is the President of the Washington-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He says somebody still has to sort the stuff.

NEIL SELDMAN: You increase your costs of processing, because you then have to separate this material, which was partially separated under the old system. The other danger of a single stream system is that glass breakage contaminates your paper and the paper mills won't take it because they have to protect their hundred million dollar machines.

CF: A private company is building a processing plant in Maryland to carefully sift out the bottles, cans and newspapers. It has new machinery designed to reduce glass-contamination.

The plant isn't operational yet. But the Department of Public Works has begun a pilot program to roadtest single stream collection. The pilot program is in Ward 7. Which is where Emma Jenkins lives.

SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK AND ROLLING CARTS (hold under and out)

CF: There, recycling collectors roll clattering blue carts from the curb to their truck. Mechanical arms on the back of the truck lift and flip the carts for them. There's no bending over.

SOUNDBITE OF CRASHING BOTTLES

CF: The truck stops briefly in front of a small brick house. Then pulls away. Emma Jenkins walks to the curb to where her blue recycling cart stands. She looks in. it's empty. She grabs the cart by the handle and wheels it to the top of her driveway.

ROLLING CART

CF: Going to single stream doesn't directly address the problem of missed pickups. But Henderson says recycling collectors are more reliable, because the job is easier now. Residents are also performing better. Participation along the pilot routes jumped from 17 to 47 percent.

And Emma Jenkins says things are better... though not perfect.

EMMA JENKINS: They come more regularly now and you can expect them and you can put your container out and they pick it up. But one thing they do that annoys me, they put the container in the middle of the driveway, so when I back out, I've got to get out and move the container. But other than that, I don't have much complaint.

CF: The rest of the District will have to wait another month for single stream. Starting January 31st, the new recycling program will be phased in route by route until it is citywide by late spring.

For Intern Edition, this is Charlie Foster.

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