Thursday, February 26, 2004
From the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Dear EarthTalk: I've heard that there were only two curbside recycling
programs in the country in the early 1970s. Where were they and
how many are there now?
-Emerick, Chicago, IL
According to Neil Seldman, president of the Institute for Local
Self-Reliance, a non-profit that promotes sustainable communities,
the first two programs were in Madison, Wisconsin and Marblehead,
Massachusetts. Seldman says that many cities had source separation
in the 1940s, largely because of the war effort, but that these
efforts fizzled after the war.
In 1967, Madison was the first city to re-establish curbside newspaper
collection, by installing special racks on garbage trucks. Madison
Street Superintendent Roger Goodwin says the pioneering newspaper
program got started because the city was running out of landfill
space. Madison also built one of the first waste-to-energy plants
in 1974 for the same reason.
Marblehead Director of Public Health Wayne Attridge says its curbside
program, which began in 1973 with the first Earth Day as inspiration,
included bottles, cans and newspapers. "It was definitely innovative,"
Attridge says. The local League of Women Voters launched the program,
aided by the nation's first Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
recycling grant.
There are now close to 9,000 curbside programs, which aid in the
recycling of 42 percent of all paper used, 40 percent of all plastic
soft drink bottles, and 55 percent of all aluminum cans, according
to the EPA's Office of Municipal Solid Waste. There are at least
600 curbside programs in Wisconsin and 156 in Massachusetts today.
New York City made news in July of 2002 when Mayor Michael Bloomberg
put the City's curbside recycling program (for everything except
paper) on hold for 18 months. Bloomberg reasoned that the project
would save the City $56.6 million annually, and that 40 percent
of the metal, glass and plastic collected was ultimately ending
up in the trash anyway. But, according to the Natural Resources
Defense Council, New York City's big savings failed to materialize,
and the plastics recycling program resumed in July 2003. Glass recycling,
as well as weekly pickups, will start again in April 2004. |