Residents want it, but officials says budgets won't allow it
Cathy Pierson pays $150 a year for curbside recycling. Before Hurricane Katrina, when the city offered the service, she paid $12.
James Sam helps Eleanor Smith with her recycling drop off Saturday, September 18, 2010 in New Orleans. Curbside recycling has not returned to the city since Katrina but residents may drop off items Saturdays at a collection center on Elysian Fields Avenue between I-10 and I-610.It's a tough bill to swallow, but Pierson, like many New Orleans area residents, says her only options are to pay a premium to the private Phoenix Recycling, or to drop off materials herself every Saturday at a city-sponsored collection site.
"I just don't like to throw things away," Pierson said. "If there's another use for it, I'd rather find it."
What Pierson wants to know is what environmental advocates, concerned residents and shocked visitors have been asking for five years: Why haven't most parishes reinstated curbside recycling collections?
Though parts of St. Tammany Parish have offered recycling collections almost without interruption since Hurricane Katrina, the rest of the metro area has failed to reinstate the service, blaming budget constraints, a lack of public support and the bad market for recyclable materials.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu's Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Ann Duplessis said City Hall is financially strapped, but hopes to find money to restart curbside recycling in the 2012 budget.
"We don't have the budget to have a full-fledged recycling program instituted," said Duplessis, mentioning the city's recently launched weekly recycling drop-off program. "Our hope is that we graduate next year into a much larger, full-blown recycling program."
Jefferson Parish, which sent out a request for proposals for recycling collections in October 2008 but ultimately abandoned the prospect, is revisiting the idea, said Marnie Winter, director of Jefferson Parish Environmental Affairs.
Recycling programs in New Orleans and Jefferson were wiped out after Hurricane Katrina, when the Metairie processing facility operated by Allied Waste Services, which handled pick-up for the two parishes, took on 8 feet of water.
Recycling contracts with Allied were suspended and were not renewed after expiring, with both parishes saying they could no longer afford the service, according to Karla Swacker, municipal marketing manager for Allied Waste Services.
A 2008 merger between Allied Waste and Republic Services Inc. "provided surplus equipment that we were able to get our hands on" for renovating the Metairie processing facility affordably, Swacker said. Despite the September 2009 reopening of the renovated facility, however, curbside collections remain an elusive goal.
"We got (the facility) open and it's great," Swacker said. "It's kind of a field of dreams: we built it and we're hoping people will come."
Though Allied has no municipal contracts for curbside collection in the metro area, it currently is partnering with parishes on weekly or monthly drop-off programs in Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Charles and St. John the Baptist. In New Orleans, the goods are transported by city workers from the Elysian Fields Avenue collection site to the Metairie processing facility, Duplessis said.
During former Mayor Ray Nagin's administration, the Department of Sanitation organized monthly drop-off events in conjunction with the Baton Rouge Recycling Foundation, which continued in starts and stops from 2007 through 2008. At the same time, Allied hosted its own monthly drop-off event at the company's Metairie location, where it was not uncommon for 800 to 1,200 cars to pass by donating materials, Swacker said.
"If people are willing to save their stuff for a month and then drive to an industrial park on a Saturday morning, it says a lot about people's commitment to recycling," she said.
According to a City Hall survey in April 2008, 90 percent of the residents polled said they would recycle if the city offered curbside collections. Most residents polled were willing to pay several dollars a month for the service.
When Jefferson Parish sent out its request for proposals in October 2008, it also sent a survey to residents in their water bills. Before Hurricane Katrina, residents paid $1.87 per month for weekly collections, Winter said. But only about a third used the service even though they were paying for it, which is in line with the national average.
Based on the two proposals the parish received, it would have cost citizens an estimated $2.15 per month to restart the service, she said.
The results showed that residents who filled out the surveys wanted recycling back, but the low response rate led officials to consider the results inconclusive, Winter said.
Winter added that, with the global market for recyclable materials "much better" than it was in early 2009, "we are hoping that our recycling options increase in the near future."
Because of the lack of municipal programs, Phoenix Recycling has attracted about 5,300 customers across the metro region since starting its service in August 2007, said owner Dave McDonough. Customers pay $15 per month or an annual fee of $150.
"I think (curbside recycling collection) is still definitely a priority in people's minds," McDonough said. "Whenever we go to any type of hearing, we always hear, first and foremost, that people want curbside recycling back."
Pierson, the New Orleans homeowner, said she is willing to pay for Phoenix Recycling in the absence of a municipal program, but she wonders how long the city will persist in what she perceives to be an egregious failure for a metropolitan area -- and a glaring reminder that the city has yet to fully recover from Hurricane Katrina.
"Recycling seems to be a basic service that cities should provide," she said.