curbside recycling pilot?!?!?!

Okay, so back in Cockrel's hot minute that he was in power, he started a curbside recycling pilot in Rosedale Park and East English Village and the surrounding areas. The project has continued in these areas, ignored by the current administration, whose only "green" project has been branding the incinerator "green energy." His quote, not mine. Whatever.

I've loved living in an area covered by something so important to me.

Normally I'm not home on Mondays, our collection day, but because of the holiday weekend I was today. I saw a CoD garbage truck come down the street...and dump the contents of our recycling bins in the back of it!

I'm not well-versed on the logistics of recycling, and call me cynical, but this struck me as suspect. Is the city pitching our recyclables that we so diligently put out every week?! What gives here?

Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to how they operate this program...or a Free Press reporter can tail one of these garbage trucks full of my recyclables to the incinerator...

Oh, man. That's hilarious. I figger that they never wanted a curbside recycling program for reasons covered in the incinerator thread. If they're doing this, I wonder if they'll try to present the results as proving what they'd hoped to prove: Recycling won't work here.

Hey DetroitPole-

Living in one of the pilot areas I had many of the same concerns you brought up. After a little investigation I learned the city is working with "recycle here" on this project. [[Link below) The program is funded for 3-years and based on household participation, revenue generated by the recyclables be sold, etc. a determination will be made to either kill the program or roll it out city wide. You can call or email recyclehere and they should be able to give you the specifics on this pilot program.

In the meantime, keep putting out your blue container with your recyclables, the city is not pitching it.

http://www.recyclehere.net/contact.html

Later!

Only slightly related, but besides the very limited curbside program, there are locations around the city that one can drop off recyclables free of charge for the DIYers:

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http://www.detroitmi.gov/Portals/0/i...ycling_Map.gif

Davison Yard • 8221 West Davison
Southfield Yard • 12255 Southfield Service Drive
State Fair Yard • 19715 John R
5840 Anthon between Cavalry and Campbell
Kemeny Recreation Center • 2260 S. Fort
Heilmann Recreation Center • 19601 Crusade

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I can't see enough homes participating in a recycling program to make this worthwhile in the city.

Its hard enough to get the trash picked up in some areas as it is, I don't see how recycling can work.

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Originally Posted by CLAUDE G

I can't see enough homes participating in a recycling program to make this worthwhile in the city.

Its hard enough to get the trash picked up in some areas as it is, I don't see how recycling can work.

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Participation in suburb communities is mandatory. I agree that it's impractical to send trucks into the urban prairies, but there is alot of areas where this can be expanded. There is no reason why Detroit can't do what the rest of America has been doing for over 20 years.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPole

I'm not well-versed on the logistics of recycling, and call me cynical, but this struck me as suspect. Is the city pitching our recyclables that we so diligently put out every week?! What gives here?

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Recycling is hard. Can't tell you anything about this case, but often you have to get your program working before you can actually recycle material. It is not cost-effective to recycle until you get the volume of recycling up to a level where someone will buy it. So this could just be startup. Give 'em a break for a while. No need for 'gotcha' journalism discouraging residents to recycle.

The method that the city is utilizing is the single stream method... all recyclable material that you put in your blue bin is placed in the rear load truck [[garbage-looking truck) and taken to the Waste Mangement Facility on Lynch Road in Detroit.... At this Facility, it is baled [[cubed) and taken to the GLR Single Stream Facility in Warren. This facility has a single stram sorting machine [[about $10 million dollar machine) that sorts all of the material into commodities to be shipped to processing facilities throughout the country.

Hope this helps...

BEE Green.

TRG

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Originally Posted by CLAUDE G

Its hard enough to get the trash picked up in some areas as it is, I don't see how recycling can work.

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Actually, within the last eight years I've lived in Detroit, I've never had any issues with my trash not being picked up by the city.

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Originally Posted by The Recycling Guy

The method that the city is utilizing is the single stream method... all recyclable material that you put in your blue bin is placed in the rear load truck [[garbage-looking truck) and taken to the Waste Mangement Facility on Lynch Road in Detroit.... At this Facility, it is baled [[cubed) and taken to the GLR Single Stream Facility in Warren. This facility has a single stram sorting machine [[about $10 million dollar machine) that sorts all of the material into commodities to be shipped to processing facilities throughout the country.

Hope this helps...

BEE Green.

TRG

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My city also switched to single-stream, recently. I'm not sure I like making it harder for the people down at the station, but if it actually increases the rate of recycling, I guess it'll have been worth it.

Here in Rosedale Park, we've had monthly drop off program run by volunteers for over 20 years, and the curbside pilot program works well on my block. I have found that we produce only one tall kitchen bag of actual garbage now. All of the rest of it goes into recycling. We keep a recycling bin at the top of the basement stairs with a clear garbage bag liner, which is OK for recycling. Not a hassle at all. No sorting. The only thing we have to sort is glass, which isn't included in the program. We drop that off at the monthly recycling at Christ the King church. And now you don't even have to sort the colors of glass. Easy.

Check out the video on single stream recycling. It looks like it's primarily an automated process, which is good for efficiency.

http://www.go-glr.com/Splash.html

I'm glad I asked. Interestingly I've never had a problem with trash pickup either. Like clockwork. Credit where credit is due.

The recycling program is a big part of my quality of life. I hope it continues. Maybe if the city is somehow rightsized that can make recycling for those rightsized-to areas more viable.