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Also this issue: Did Feds Foil Terrorist Plot Against Bell? Time's Up? Don't Go Away Angry Meet the Press The Bell Curve |
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June 27-July 3, 2002
city beat
 Donāt eubanks on it: Earlier this month, Tonight Show host Jay Leno held up this door hanger created by the Philadelphia Streets Department and asked why bandleader Kevin Eubanks was moonlighting as a SWEEP officer. |
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Recycling advocates say they hope the city’s recent decision to collect recyclables and trash on the same day will lead to increased participation. But if recycling rates don’t get a boost, they fear the Street administration will use it as an excuse to cut the program.
Both Philadelphia and Pennsylvania laws mandate that residents place paper, cans and bottles out on the curb for biweekly pickup -- but only about 6 percent of the city's residential waste stream gets diverted to those bright blue buckets and bins. By comparison, some major cities divert more than 20 percent of household waste to recycling, according to a February industry survey.
The Streets Department is spending $525,000 to run television, newspaper and radio ads, as well as to distribute door hangers, alerting residents that they could receive up to a $300 fine for failing to separate recyclables from trash. SWEEP officers (Streets and Walkways Education and Enforcement Program) are already trash-picking throughout the city and handing out warnings. In surveys conducted by the Streets Department, Philadelphians who currently don't recycle responded that fines were the only thing that could make them change their behavior.
Recycling coordinator David Robinson says it is too soon to determine whether the citations have led to increased participation. But the demand for recycling buckets and bins has "skyrocketed" since the ad campaign began, says deputy streets commissioner Clarena Tolson.
The ads -- featuring the smiling "Officer Daniel" -- are also aimed at educating residents that the Streets Department is now collecting recyclables and trash on the same day. Recycling advocates grumbled for years that the city policy of picking up recyclables the day before trash collection was confusing.
Some environmentalists are expressing concern that the ad campaign could backfire.
"We have a $1 million promotions campaign in place," points out Maurice Sampson, a former recycling coordinator who now works for Philadelphia Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future. "I'm nervous that, in a year from now, still no one will be recycling and the city will use this as an excuse to cut the program."
To stave off such a move, members of the Recycling Alliance of Philadelphia are orchestrating a letter-writing campaign, urging Mayor Street and City Council members not to slash funding for recycling. The coalition of community and environmental groups is also distributing a petition with a similar message.
When materials are collected weekly, as much as 28 percent of waste gets diverted to recycling, based on the results of a recent "co-collection" pilot in three Philadelphia neighborhoods. Some recycling advocates contend that these numbers are evidence that more people will recycle only if the city provides weekly pickup.
"City officials are approaching this backward," Sampson says. "They are fining people, but they're not providing access to recycling."
Philadelphia's recycling program remains threatened because of budget shortfalls. But at the same time, public pressure forced Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Charleston, S.C., to restore their recycling programs after these cities attempted to close budget gaps by stopping recycling.
"The political outcry was pretty devastating," Sampson notes. "Most people expect recycling."
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also angling to end recycling as a means of cutting costs. Ironically, the additional trash would need to be incinerated, which is even more expensive, "pound per pound," than recycling, Sampson says.
Members of the Recycling Alliance are looking at alternatives for reducing recycling expenses. For instance, the Streets Department should reduce the number of crew members on recycling trucks from three to two, says Bob Pierson, who runs the Partnership for Recycling. In most American cities, he says, trucks carry just one driver and one laborer. The Streets Department commissioner, William Johnson, has publicly agreed.
But standing up to Philadelphia's strong unions can be political suicide, Pierson acknowledges.
"The Mayor and City Council should figure out how to reconcile this union issue," he says, adding that other cities have been able to reduce the workforce through attrition, without ever firing anyone.
Some members of the city's Recycling Advisory Commission (RAC) are also questioning a recent Streets Department report concluding that it is not cost effective to collect recyclables and trash in a multi-compartment truck. The department invested hundreds of thousands of dollars to test trucks capable of collecting both trash and recyclables -- including plastics, cardboard and yard waste, which are not normally collected. The trucks followed routes in the Northeast, Manayunk and Germantown sections of the city from August through January. The final analysis determined that co-collection costs 35 percent more than dual truck collection.
The city spends nearly $1.1 million a year to collect trash and recyclables in these communities using separate trucks, Tolson says. But using a multi-compartment truck averaged out to more than $1.4 million, she says. Each time a single compartment filled up, the driver was forced to head to the transfer station to empty it. By contrast, a trash truck can stay on its route until completely full. (Drivers racked up at least three hours of overtime pay a day on co-collection routes.)
"Chief among our challenges are the narrow streets in Philadelphia," Tolson says, noting that co-collection trucks have a wider turning radius. Some of the trucks also jammed easily during compaction -- leading the department to conclude that collecting plastics and cardboard isn't currently feasible.
RAC members say they understand that the pilot did not go perfectly smoothly. But they are urging the Streets Department to work out the kinks.
Because soda companies are getting beat up for generating so many plastic containers, Coca-Cola bottlers have told the city they will pay for Philadelphia's next round of recycling trucks, Robinson says.
