Cover Story

Posted Monday, February 22, 2016 1:41 pm

How you - yes, you – can do a better job recycling #1 Education RecycleTogetherRI.com provides a wealth of information on proper recycling and disposal of non-recyclables, including helpful video tutorials. You can also look behind the scenes at Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation’s operations, including the Materials Recycling Facility, where actual human beings have to pick through the motley assortment of things you thoughtlessly toss in your green bin. “When people throw in items that aren’t on the list, it affects our workers,” explains RIRRC’s Sarah Reeves. “Sometimes these things can be hazardous, like syringes, diapers or human medical waste. Other times they’re dangerous, like propane tanks or engine blocks. We receive dead animals in recycling loads, chains, ropes, clothing, furniture, tires – you name it. All of these things have somewhere else to go, but because people don’t know or understand that their fellow human beings are on the other side of the bin sifting through their stuff, it’s easy to shrug off the warnings.” #2 Composting The EPA estimates that about 20% of municipal waste is compostable. Leo Pollock, founder of The Compost Plant in Providence, thinks that figure is even higher, likely around one-third. Diverting that waste from the landfill would be a twofold improvement: it would take up less room and reduce the emission of methane, which is a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. The benefits of composting are many, for the environment, the landfill and the folks creating it. Unfortunately, there is not yet a single solution for those who wish to compost in Providence. For some it’s a simple matter of starting a compost bin at home. For those who live in multi-family residences with no yards or storage spaces, it’s a bit more complicated. The City has piloted some promising neighborhood composting programs that divert food waste locally, but the challenge is scaling them. “It’s not going to be feasible to only have this food waste processed in community gardens and urban farms,” notes Pollock. “There would need to be a larger-scale collection system.” For now, The Compost Plant offers a food scrap collection service, which delivers the waste to Earth Care Farm in Charlestown. Providence COMPOSTS!, a partnership between the City and Southside Community Land Trust, runs some pilot composting programs in neighborhoods around the city. ecoRI Earth is another collection service available to residents in Providence, Edgewood/Pawtuxet Village and southern Pawtucket. As more people demonstrate a willingness to compost, there will be more incentive to find a large-scale fix, and we will all be able to breathe a little easier. #3 Plastic Bags This is an easy one. You cannot – repeat, can. not. – throw plastic shopping bags and the like in your recycling bins. When they reach the recycling facility they can get caught in the sorting machines and cause all sorts of problems. Fortunately, all major supermarkets and convenience stores (CVS, Walgreen’s, etc.) are required to offer collection bins for recycling bags. Simply take the mess of bags that’s cluttering your pantry with you on the next trip to the grocery store – or better yet, switch to reusable bags. #4 Yard Waste Here’s another easy one: the City offers curbside yard waste pick-up from mid-April to mid-December. Leaves, grass clippings, etc. can be left out on trash day in large paper bags or open barrels labeled “yard waste.” This stuff should never, ever be placed in your Big Green Can. #5 Bulky Items, Mattresses and E-Waste Not sure what to do with that old sofa, mattress, appliance or computer monitor? Well, to start with don’t throw them in your trash – they don’t belong there, and won’t be picked up on trash day. The City does offer free bulky item and e-waste pick-up through Waste Management, its waste disposal contractor. Simply call them at 800-972-4545 at least 24 hours before your regular trash day to schedule a free pick-up. Waste Management will also schedule pick-ups for old mattresses and boxsprings for a $22 charge. If you’d rather dispose of your mattress for free, you can drop it off at the Providence Public Works Convenience Center (140 Terminal Road, off Allens Avenue) between 7am-1pm every Saturday. Proof of Providence residency is required. Public Works also allows you to drop old electronics and appliances in one of its e-waste pods located at 700 Allens Avenue from 8:30am-4:30pm, Monday through Saturday. #6 Hazardous Waste We’ve all got something nasty that we’re not sure how to get rid of – and we don’t mean that in the metaphoric sense. Used motor oil, old paint, pesticides, fluorescent light bulbs, pool chemicals, syringes and other hazardous materials are never to be thrown in with either your recycling or your trash. So where should they go? On Saturday, March 26 from 8am-1pm you can bring them to RIRRC’s Eco-Depot collection at the Providence Department of Public Works (700 Allens Avenue). It’s an opportunity to leave hazardous waste disposal to the professionals. The service is free, but it’s recommended that you call 942-1430 x241 in advance to schedule an appointment and avoid waiting in line. If you miss this one, RIRRC has a total of 46 Eco-Depot events scheduled throughout the state in 2016. For more information, visit EcoDepotri.org.

Providence, we need to talk. We have a recycling problem and we really need to discuss it. Actually, it might be more accurate to say we have a general waste management problem, but either way, we can’t keep pretending those big green cans are magic vessels that will make all our problems go away.

This conversation needs to include all of us. Yes, even you, Mr. or Mrs. I-recycle-everything-all-the-time, happily filling your green bin to the max with plastic hangers and grease-soaked pizza boxes and assuming that you’re doing your part. You, too, are part of the problem. Look, we all want to believe we’re doing our part to help steward our tiny corner of the planet, but the fact is that we can do better, need to do better. As the biggest city – and therefore, the biggest trash producer – in the state, our recycling efforts (or lack thereof), have real impacts on the environment, the ability of the entire state to manage its waste and even our taxes and city services. Consider this our intervention – and as always, the first step to solving our problem is admitting that we have one.

According to 2014 data from Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), Providence is sending almost a full ton (.99) of trash to the landfill for every household served by its waste haulers. The average for all other municipalities with 10,000 or more households served is .88. And it gets worse. Our MRF recycling rate, which measures the percentage of the total trash collection that’s being sent to RIRRC’s Materials Recycling Facility, is by far the lowest in the state at 9.5%, compared to an average of 22.9% for municipalities

serving 10,000 households or more and 23.8% statewide. Our mandatory recycling rate, which also takes into account yard waste and other materials that are recycled somewhere other than the green bin, is a paltry 13.9%, compared to 33.6% (municipalities ≥ 10,000) and 34.8% (statewide). The end result is that only 14.5% of our trash is being diverted from the landfill, while the statewide average is over 35%.

One of the major reasons for this problem is the fact that about two-thirds of the city’s dwellings are multi-family units. “It is more difficult to recycle in smaller apartments and denser neighborhoods,” notes Leah Bamberger, Providence’s Director of Sustainability.

“Storage can be a real problem in these areas.” This is compounded by the fact that Providence’s municipal waste disposal service will accommodate multi-families up to six units; most other municipalities cap it at four, beyond which the property owners are responsible for paying for their own waste management. With a constant flux of tenants in and out of these dwellings, and an estimated 25 languages being spoken in Providence on any given day, just keeping current residents informed about the Do’s and Don’ts is one of the city’s biggest recycling challenges.

“A city the size of Providence should be recycling at least 15,000 tons per year. Right now, the city successfully recycles less than 7,000 tons,” says Sarah Reeves, RIRRC’s Director of Public Policy, Programs and Planning. The key to that statement comes down to two little words: “successfully recycles.” The problem isn’t that we’re not throwing enough into those green bins, it’s that we’re throwing too much into them – or, more accurately, too much of the wrong stuff. According to RIRRC’s data, only about 40% of the city’s recycling is successful. “We’d like to see more focus on recycling right rather than on recycling rates,” Reeves notes. So what exactly does that mean?

What We Don’t Know About Recycling Could Fill a Truck

We tend to think of recycling as a form of waste disposal, just like our weekly trash pick-up, but that’s a fundamental misunderstanding. “Recycling is a manufacturing process. The recyclables become raw materials, and for them to have value there has to be a manufacturer on the other end,” Reeves clarifies. We all know that some things are recyclable and others are not, a difference most of us assume comes down to the material. There are actually three factors that determine an item’s recyclability (or lack thereof):

1) There must be someone on the other end willing to buy the material (i.e. the glass in your beer bottle or the cardboard in your pizza box).

2) RIRRC must be able to collect the item efficiently. (For example, one of the reasons you can’t ship your plastic bags off with your recyclables is because they tend to wrap themselves around the sorting machines at the Materials Recycling Facility, causing shutdowns.)

3) RIRRC must be able to collect the quantity and quality of material desired by the buyer. “If I don’t have a customer to buy bales of Bic pens, then Bic pens aren’t recyclable,” declares Reeves. “It’s truly that simple.”

Understanding these factors is key to increasing Providence’s recycling numbers. When we put something in the recycling bin that doesn’t belong there, it doesn’t magically get recycled anyway (Reeves calls this “wishcycling”) – it gets rerouted to the landfill, where it adds to the already monumental amount of trash we’re sending there. Furthermore, when we put really nasty things in the recycling bin – rotting food, yard waste, household chemicals – it contaminates the whole load, and otherwise good recyclables end up in the landfill. People put some crazy things into their recycling bins – syringes, diapers, tires, propane tanks, engine parts, even dead animals, to name a few – and it adds up: according to Bamberger, the city’s contaminated recycling loads in fiscal year 2015 totaled 17,000 tons. We’re not just adding up tonnage either, we’re also counting dollars.



Bad Recycling Means Throwing Money Away

“Our poor recycling rate costs the City a significant amount of money each year,” Bamberger explains. “For every rejected load, we are fined $250.” The rejected loads are a double whammy for the City’s budget, too: each municipality has a cap on how much waste it can send to the landfill in a given year. The City pays a $32 per ton tipping fee as long as it stays under the cap; it increases to $54 per ton beyond the cap. In FY2015, Providence exceeded its cap by over 14,000 tons. “If we can eliminate these rejected loads and send them to the recycling facility instead of the landfill, we could stay under our cap and save upwards of $775,000 per year,” says Bamberger. We’re also losing out on potential income, because the City gets back a percentage of the value of its successful recycling. Total all those losses and you’ll realize, as RIRRC’s Reeves notes, “that money is truly being thrown away.”

That cost has ripple effects. “We need to start paying more attention to our waste, and understanding how it’s managed and what this costs,” says Leo Pollock, founder of the Compost Plant, a commercial composting operation in Providence. “I don’t think most people understand that the more we recycle successfully, the more money the City saves for general services.”

These are just the immediate costs – over the long term, it could get much worse. The state landfill in Johnston is approaching the end of its useful life; at today’s rate of trash generation, it’s got another 22 years, at best. Once we run out of room there, it’s not like any other municipalities will line up to site a new one. What happens then? “Without a central landfill, cities and towns would be forced to export our trash, which could mean paying fees of close to $100 per ton,” notes Bamberger. That increased strain on the budget could lead to either higher taxes or cuts in services, or both.

Pollock sees a disconnect in our understanding of the economics at work. “Because we pay the cost of trash collection in taxes, it’s hidden, it’s invisible,” he says. “So there’s a little bit of this mentality of trash having no ‘real’ cost, which then disincentivizes recycling and composting.” He also calls the $32 per ton tipping fee “absurdly,

artificially low.”



Providence Can Do Better

Reeves, Bamberger and Pollock all agree that education is the key to solving Providence’s recycling problem. That’s easier said than done, but unless Providence residents are willing to host a new landfill or see their tax bills skyrocket, it’s imperative that we try.

Reeves believes that getting information directly in the hands of residents, not just property owners, is crucial to raising awareness in a city with so many multi-unit dwellings. “We’ve heard that many residents are simply unaware that there are [City] services like bulky goods pick-up, electronic waste collections or household hazardous waste events. Some don’t know why their trash carts are two different colors,” says Reeves. “When the City speaks with people one-on-one and discusses the programs, residents are quick to comply. Door-to-door community engagement is needed every day.”

Bamberger agrees, but cautions that it “is a continued challenge given limited resources and an extremely diverse and transient population.” Last fall, the City piloted its SustainPVD Ambassador program, which trains residents about proper recycling practices so that they can in turn educate their neighbors. An experiment with this program in Washington Park produced encouraging results.

The City is also trying the carrot where the stick hasn’t worked. There is a municipal enforcement effort that can result in fines for improper recycling, but those violations are often issued to landlords who are not actually the guilty parties. Last year, the City tried a new tactic: offering free admission to the Downtown skating rink to residents who filled out a recycling pledge card and sent it to the Office of Sustainability. “These are all pilot efforts to help us understand what works and what doesn’t,” explains Bamberger. “We are closely monitoring the impacts of these efforts so we can then scale strategies that are proven to be effective.”



Ultimately, the most effective way to solve this problem is for each of us to do our individual part. “I think every Rhode Island resident should take a tour of the landfill and the recycling facility,” Pollock enthuses. “When you see the recycling process, the volume moving through the facility, and understand how things that casually get thrown in recycling bins can screw up the entire system, it changes how you think.” While you may not be clearing your schedule to plan that visit, you can put a little more time into doing your civic duty. Learn the Do’s and Don’ts of proper recycling. Spend a few extra minutes on trash day ensuring that the right things are in the right bins. Watch some of the helpful videos at RecycleTogetherri.org.



Unfortunately, some people will never do their part to reduce our recycling problem, but Pollock has a solution for them, too: “I think residents with that attitude should be paying more for their waste collection.”