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Before moving from Columbus to the suburbs recently, I often could be found driving around with bags of trash in the back of my car—and not because I was auditioning for the reality show “Hoarders.” I was trying to recycle. As an apartment dweller in the Short North, hauling my empties to a drop box was the only way to do the green thing.
Mayor Michael Coleman feels my pain. But like Kermit the Frog, he knows it’s not easy being green. “The [recycling] programs we’ve had have been anemic at best,” he concedes.
One of those programs came from his cutely named, aspirational “Green Memo” of 2005 that got an update in his February State of the City speech, making Coleman’s old idea for environmentalism new again. (Why, you might even say it’d been recycled.)
There’s little argument that the city—as its upstart suburban neighbors have proved—can do better to facilitate curbside recycling. As it stands now, says Dan Williamson, the mayor’s spokesman, “We’ll charge you for your good deed or we’ll inconvenience you for your good deed.”
So actually getting a good recycling program in place, perhaps one that combines yard waste removal as the mayor has proposed, is Step 1. (A press conference is scheduled for the end of April to introduce the public side of the plan, and the mayor is hopeful a program might be announced in a few months, although his deadline for implementation isn’t until 2012.)
Which is great news for people in Columbus who are inclined to drive around with tin cans in their back seat or pay Best Buy $10 to recycle a TV, as I’ve done.
But I’m from Portland, Oregon, and I was literally the poster child for the city’s early recycling program three decades ago; a story in the Oregonian was accompanied by a photo of my dad holding me in a diaper, surrounded by stacks of soon-to-be-recycled newspapers.
Today, I drive a Prius; I don’t need the green sales pitch.
Which brings us to Step 2: Getting Columbus residents to give a damn about recycling. “There’s a cultural issue here in Columbus regarding recycling,” Coleman says. Which is to say, most folks don’t do it. Just 5 percent of eligible homes currently are paying for it through Rumpke.
To get folks in a sorting frame of mind, Coleman promises “the full-court press of education,” which will, in part, emphasize the green bottom line. City estimates give the current landfill just 20 more years of use, with a new one potentially costing taxpayers $90 million if it’s built soon. And, as Coleman has said, if Columbus can divert as much as 35 percent of its waste from the landfill, the city could save more than $5 million.
He’s also not underestimating the value of peer pressure, especially as it pertains to kids influencing their parents.
Coleman is confident Columbus residents will come around. After all, last year they passed an income tax increase that had support from just one in 10 people when introduced (“and I was the one,” Coleman jokes).
There are signs Columbus residents are ready to follow Coleman’s green path this time. The Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio, which manages those drop boxes I made pilgrimages to, reports that the total tons dropped off for 2009 was up 16 percent over 2008. This March’s total was the highest since SWACO took over collections in 2004.
It’s a good start, but there’s a long way to go and every bit helps.
By the way—and you saw this coming—please recycle this magazine (unless you intend to keep it forever, as my editor would prefer).
