If you’ve been reading this blog, you know how important it is to me to be able to recycle as much as possible at home. Ideally, I would like to be able to recycle when I’m on the road, too–which I am a lot, either traveling with my family or doing media tours to promote my books.
What surprises me is how un-recycle friendly many cities are. For example, during a recent trip to Chicago, I held onto a glass iced tea bottle for blocks and blocks, hoping I might see a telltale blue or green glass recycling bin somewhere on Michigan Avenue. I never found one (my hotel room didn’t have any recycling options either), so eventually, I had to toss the bottle into the regular trash. At least the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), which runs the Windy City’s subways, has gone the green route, sort of: a press release on the CTA website, touting its green initiatives, says that there are 250 newspaper recycling bins in CTA stations. That sounds great, until you realize that there are 144 CTA train stations, meaning there are fewer than two recycling bins per station. By comparison, when I exit commuter trains at New York City’s Penn Station, I pass at least two newspaper recycling bins per platform.
At least one U.S. city has the right idea: Seattle, Washington, has pledged to recycled 60 percent of its waste, and to reach that goal, there are now 800 recycling bins in Seattle public places and near public-use trash cans. Other cities should share Seattle’s goals.
Maybe one way to get more U.S. residents to recycle is to give them a financial incentive to do so–by passing bottle bills in all states. (Currently, only 11 states require deposits on bottles and cans.) Interestingly, a recent article in the New York Times showed that recycling efforts in these are significantly higher than in states without bottle bills.)
When I lived in New York, I would get five cents for every soda can or bottle I returned to the grocery store. That was almost as good as finding spare change under the couch cushions.
In Maine where my mom lives, she can get five cents for plastic water bottles that are returned. The best, though, was when I was a Michigan resident: folks there get a whopping 10 cents to bring bottles back.
For a funny look at how much bottle deposits inspire people to recycle, check out “The Bottle Deposit,” a long-ago Seinfeld episode, when Kramer schemes to double his bottle deposit money by driving his recyclables from New York to Michigan.
With all of the soda that my family drinks and the fact that so many plastic water bottles end up in landfills, instead of recycling them like they should, I wonder how much money the average American family could pocket if they could return all of these containers for five or 10 cents backs? I’ll bet it could easily add up to hundreds each year.
1 Comment
August 19, 2007 at 2:52 am
Great post! I’ve been trying to recycle more often. Fortunately I live in the PNW, where recycling is very common. That makes it a bit easier.
I tagged you with the MOMA meme on my site. http://www.beingfrugal.typepad.com.
I really enjoy your blog!