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If you live in Coeur d’Alene and have one of the gray Waste Management garbage carts (shown left), you will soon have one of the blue recycling carts (shown left) dropped in front of your residence. Both carts are the same size. The blue cart replaces the much smaller and easier to handle blue recycling bin. But the City of Coeur d’Alene and Waste Management are misleading residents by omission in their information about the switch to the carts. You are not being told you do not have to accept this blue cart. That was first pointed out in this letter to the editor of a local newspaper.
I contacted Leah Gauthier of Waste Management in Oak Harbor, Washington. She confirmed that Coeur d’Alene residents are neither obligated to accept nor even use the large blue carts for recycling. However, the smaller bins will no longer be serviced (emptied) by Waste Management.
If you want to recycle but not receive the cart, notify Waste Management (208-765-4968) , and they will not deliver the cart to your residence. Then it will be up to you to find alternatives to recycling. The logical alternative for those choosing to recycle is to simply keep the smaller blue bin and take your recyclables to the nearest transfer station. Even if you decline to accept the cart, it will not lower your garbage pickup rates.
So why didn’t the City and Waste Management make it clear that the much larger carts were optional rather than mandatory? They were and are very concerned that people will simply stop recycling. Recycling is not mandatory in Coeur d’Alene. The larger carts require more storage space. People already have to find space for the gray garbage carts of the same size, and adding yet another cart that has to be wheeled curbside in six inches of winter snow or a blinding rain doesn’t appeal to that many people.
Here is a photo of the label on top of one of the new blue carts. It tells what you can and must not put in the carts. Still think the City and Waste Management were thinking of your convenience when they cut this deal?
Bill, I had an interesting conversation with a waste disposal expert the other day. He said that recycling is never a money maker; it always costs more than it saves. That’s why, he told me, we can’t recycle glass here. (notice there’s no glass on the visual ad above) Glass is too cheap and he told me that to melt down and reuse the glass costs about 3 times more than making the item out of new glass.
If you all recall, we had an increase in our garbage fees, just so we can recycle more. Our tax dollars at work!
Comment by mary — October 11, 2010 @ 6:06 pm
Mary, I left a response to you on the other thread if you’d care to take a look.
Comment by KootenaiConservative — October 11, 2010 @ 6:15 pm
I saw it KC, and I’m ignoring it.
Comment by mary — October 11, 2010 @ 7:15 pm
They can use glass to make asphalt. What’s the reason why they don’t do that here?
Comment by Dan — October 11, 2010 @ 7:42 pm
Mary, not only is recycling (at least at a residential level) not economically friendly, it is also not enviromentally friendly. You could relate it to “global warming” alot hype, but no real science.
Comment by Steve Adams — October 11, 2010 @ 8:12 pm
Somebody help me out, and give me instructions for downloading an avatar. If I am going to blog, the readers shouldn’t be deprived of my handsome mug.
Comment by Steve Adams — October 11, 2010 @ 8:22 pm
Now there’s a 21st century noun,”avatar”. Is that what they call these personal blogging Icons?
Comment by Ancientemplar — October 11, 2010 @ 9:03 pm
Steve, Google ‘Gravatar’
Comment by Gary Ingram — October 11, 2010 @ 10:21 pm
A lot of older citizens with diminished strength and mobility will not want to manhandle yet another 64 gallon wagon through the snow from their garage down a driveway and somehow wrestle it though the inevitable snow berm. As a matter of fact, a lot of able bodied citizens will find it a nuisance also.
The result will be no recycling of anything as folks put everything into the garbage. Unintended consequences from poor planning and a lack of knowledge of basic human nature. Sigh…
Comment by Gary Ingram — October 11, 2010 @ 10:29 pm
Well, I’m looking forward to the big blue bin. I moved out the trebuchet specifically to make room for it.
That’s not a joke, by the way.
I routinely drive to the transfer station to recycle my cardboard, stuff that the driver doesn’t pick up in the tiny blue bin. And, honestly, I have too much cardboard to recycle in that tiny blue bin anyway (thank you, Costco). I also like that they’ll take the plastic jugs. So I’m looking forward to having the larger bin.
BTW, not everyone has the big 64-gallon grey bins. I use the smallest bin, which is all I really need. What would have been nice would be if you could order the blue recycling bin in the same size as your grey bin. Just because everyone has a 64-ballon recycling bin doesn’t mean that they’ll be picking up 64-gallons of recyclables from everyone, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they factored that figure into some report somewhere.
Comment by Dan — October 12, 2010 @ 8:42 am
As to your question about glass used in asphalt, Dan, I asked the waste expert and he said ground recycled glass is more expensive than what they use now in the asphalt. So there you go. It’s just not good business.
He did say that the most cost effective way to deal with trash is to incinerate it, but the PC police wouldn’t be happy.
Comment by mary — October 12, 2010 @ 12:57 pm
There’s a trash incineration method that generates energy and supposedly has no waste. It uses a plasma beam to vaporize the trash. I suppose it’s the initial expense that keeps localities from employing that technology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_arc_waste_disposal
Comment by Dan — October 12, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
I cannot understand the reluctance to add crushed glass to asphalt. I think it is successfully utilized in other areas.
Has anyone seen the beautiful recycled glass tiles for residential and/or commercial use that are produced in Seattle. They could be manufactured here as well.
Comment by Susie Snedaker — October 13, 2010 @ 11:41 am
Susie,
It may be less a reluctance to use it than the cost of processing recycled glass for mixture into the asphalt stuff. It would be good to know what the startup and M&O costs of that process would be. Maybe it would be viable. If so, wouldn’t the existing landfill by Rockford Bay be a pretty good location?
Comment by Bill — October 13, 2010 @ 11:46 am