Waste Not, Want Not

An Examination of Grand Rapid’s Recycling System by Frederick Meijer Honors College students at Grand Valley State University, Kevin Bergy, Kurt O’Hearn, Britta Stifler, Emily Schneider, and Robert VanVossen.

Everybody loves freebies.  Better yet is a freebie that benefits an entire community.  A freebie that benefits an entire community is usually a far-fetched idea.  However, the City of Grand Rapids provides its citizens with an opportunity to turn this fantasy into a reality.  The city’s Waste Not Recycling program does just that:  it offers free recycling bins and curbside pick-up to any household that chooses to participate. Given the countless benefits recycling can bring to a community, it is surprising that 40 percent of the households in Grand Rapids elect not to subscribe to the program, according to the statistic provided by Barbara Small, Streets and Sanitation Department Administrative Services Officer. This lack of participation suggests either significant apathy among the city’s population or lack of knowledge about Waste Not.

The City of Grand Rapids offers the Waste Not Recycling program to all single- and multi-family households within city limits.  Citizens simply have to sign up with the Streets and Sanitation Department and visit the office located at 201 Market Street in order to pick up two of the blue plastic bins used for curbside pick-up.

The current system requires customers to separate paper and cardboard recyclables from glass, metal, and plastic recyclables.  However, construction of a new recycling facility is underway in order to accommodate a single-stream process, which will allow customers to combine all recyclables in one large wheeled container.  This will make recycling even simpler and more convenient for customers:  paper and cardboard recyclables will no longer need to be separated from plastic, glass, and metal and the wheeled container will be much easier to haul to the curb than the two heavy plastic bins.

While it has been estimated that up to 75 percent of household-produced material is recyclable, curbside pick-up cannot accept all recyclables.  Appliances and electronics can be recycled, but they must be dropped off at specific recycling locations.  (For more information, visit the Waste Not website or call the recycling helpline at 616-456-3232.)  Curbside pick-up also cannot accept contaminated items.  Customers need to make sure glass, plastic, and metal food containers are empty and clean and that paper and cardboard products are not tainted with grease to ensure that these items can be recycled.

The City of Grand Rapids has created the Waste Not Recycling program so that its citizens can benefit both directly and indirectly by properly disposing of recyclables.  The program allows citizens to make a positive impact on the environment without making financial sacrifices.  Instead, the community of Grand Rapids can benefit in ways that are not limited to environmental sustainability.

By recycling, citizens can save money not only for themselves, but also for the city.  Individually, recycling reduces the cost of tags for refuse disposal; recycling is free while trash removal is not.  Higher volumes of recycling and lower volumes of refuse save the city in disposal costs.  (Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s, Recycling Program saved the city over $700,000 in disposal costs in 2008.)  These savings can then be reinvested into programs to benefit the community as a whole, such as environmental and recycling education programs for schoolchildren.

Grand Rapids is also looking to add an incentive program that will reward citizens for recycling.  The addition of incentives linked to a household’s recycling amount will likely coincide with the switch from dual- to single-stream processing about a year from now.  This will allow citizens to have immediate, tangible returns when they recycle.

In addition to the current, individual benefits recycling offers, there is also an intergenerational obligation to preserve the environment.  Much like the obligation a parent has to care and provide for a child, it is an obligation of this generation to ensure a clean environment for the next.

As if all these benefits were not enough, the citizens of Grand Rapids are already funding the recycling service!  Waste Not is paid for through the refuse millage and a portion of the property taxes that go to refuse removal.  It only makes sense for citizens who are already paying for the service to take advantage of it, especially considering the enormous benefits recycling can bring both today and in the future.

The benefits can only be realized, though, if citizens actively participate.  A participation rate of only 60 percent cannot optimize the benefits recycling can offer; the greater the participation rate, the more the individual and community benefits will be enjoyed.  So don’t stand by and allow the environment to deteriorate!  Instead, save some green both in the environment and in the pocketbook.