We Need Better Recycling

Each week, Mobilians place their garbage bins curbside, full of trash they wish to have taken off their hands by the city. This service requires no outright fee to obtain, as it is paid for with taxes. Free, city-wide waste pickup is one of the most valuable services a community can offer, but is the city doing enough when it offers to remove just the trash that can’t be recycled?

Mobile needs more emphasis on the importance of recycling, and it could start by re-evaluating the ways its citizens can do so.

The only free, full-scale recycling service offered in Mobile is the Metro Mobile Recycling Drop-Off Center, located on Government Street in midtown. Curbside recycling pickup services are offered only through private companies, like Earth Resources, which charges a monthly fee. While programs like Earth Resources are nonetheless of great value to the community and strive to make a difference, there is still the monthly $18 to contend with.

This may not seem like much to many, but spending $216 a year in order to recycle is not feasible or desirable for some. Unfortunately, Earth Resources’ Web site claims that the program is endangered due to lack of funding, which would leave Mobile with just private, paper-only pickup.

But even Earth Resources itself states that it would eventually like to see Mobile offer the same free, widely-accessible curbside pickup services for recyclable items that are offered for disposable waste.

Realizing the benefits of an effective, rigorous recycling program, which creates jobs, protects the environment, and is cheaper than trash collection, many cities have implemented programs that function like the free weekly trash pickup. Some have even established mandatory recycling policies.

The city of Mobile, on the other hand, is far behind in leading the community toward recycling their waste.

The drop-off center is far away from many residents, especially those in west Mobile, and tends to discourage people from recycling altogether, since it’s less convenient to drive 30 minutes to the site than to just throw everything in the trash at home. Furthermore, people are less likely to recycle from home using the private pickup services if they are turned off by the monthly fee.

Mobile County and participating surrounding areas ventured to cover the issue of recycling in 2005’s Solid Waste Management Plan, a resolution penned by the Mobile County Commission. The document, which extends through June 2015, defines a comprehensive waste management plan. It states that there is another 35 years’ worth of landfill space available for Mobile and the surrounding areas’ waste needs but outlines a need for properly managing waste to avoid the eventual necessitation of expanding current landfills.

The plan states the hopeful goal of achieving a 25 percent rate of recycling in the city through various means, including composting, but contains a troubling claim: “Some areas of the country have recycling programs that are subsidized by state and/or local government because there is limited space available for landfills. … In Mobile County, it has not been economically feasible for governments or municipalities to subsidize recycling efforts due to the relatively low cost of land.”

How exactly, then, does the city intend to truly raise the bar on recycling if it is unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to spend any money on a better city-wide recycling effort? It’s difficult to imagine how this 25 percent goal for the city will be met if recycling is neither readily accessible nor displayed by Mobile as a priority. Recycling can even help lower costs of solid waste removal, but as long as waste management remains focused on subsidizing solid waste pickup services alone, recycling will be trampled underfoot.

Perhaps one of the best answers to the problem lies in an effective system many cities are adopting, called “pay-as-you-throw.” The city sells rolls of trash bags that are available for purchase at local stores, and will only pick up waste contained in these bags. Municipal sanitation services are paid for through sales of these bags.

This creates an incentive for recycling, wherein those who recycle more and throw away less trash spend less money on the trash bags, and the city in turn has adequate funding for a curbside recycling-pickup program. Perhaps Mobile should look toward this well-proven option.

In the meantime, please do your part and recycle!