Chattanooga Pulse

Environmentalists claimed a victory, though not a total one, over the mayor’s office earlier this month when Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield announced that he was re-instituting curbside recycling…but only every other week.

The creator of the petition to recall the mayor over his stance on recycling, Frank DePinto, tells Pulse News that, “We will still need to keep up the recall pressure and signatures, because the mayor has rescinded these good intentions before,” adding, “We will not let him get away with it again.”

DePinto went on to congratulate the mayor on his decision, but even in his congratulations, holds a virtual sword to the mayor’s neck, saying “We, the ‘Citizens to Recall Mayor Littlefield,’ feel this is a very ‘giant-step-forward,’ and again our congratulations to him.” Note the continued use of the organization’s name.

DePinto has been on the forefront of the recycling saga from the early days prior to 1994 when the city first instituted the service. He was also one of the first to fight back when, in 2006, the curbside program was nearly eliminated.

Mayor Littlefield is still concerned about the low percentage of Chattanoogans who actually take advantage of this service. According to his statistics, only 13 percent of city residents put recyclable materials out to the curb for pickup. The percentage of materials recycled increased when the frequency of pickups was reduced, according to the city, but more residents will have to participate to make the program viable in the long run.

The mayor believed that instead of having trucks run all over the city, producing greenhouse gases themselves, that people who really wanted to participate in the program would be willing to bring their recyclables to collections centers. To that end, he supported the building of four more collection centers.

The centers are operated by clients of the Orange Grove Center. These developmentally disabled individuals do the sorting work once recyclable materials are dropped off. There are still many questions about the specific relationship between the city and the center which have not been answered. According to data provided by DePinto, Orange Grove receives $300,000 a year to operate the collection centers.

The city is requiring residents to register for the free curbside recyclable pick-up. The Department of Public Works is taking the registrations and will build a list of residents wishing to participate. That way, they will be able to create efficient truck routes to service every citizen wanting to participate without creating more of a problem with the trucks’ carbon footprint.

The city is also attempting to increase program participation through education. But even this has been contentious. A measure allowing the city to continue hiring prestigious public relations firm Waterhouse, creators of “Rocky the Recycling Raccoon”, was nearly defeated by fiscally conservative city council members, led by Deborah Scott. They protested the city’s spending more than $100,000 to teach the public about a program which has already been in existence for 15 years.

Regardless of efforts put into making drop-off centers accessible and conveniently located, providing trucks for curbside pick-up, educating the public on the availability of both and making it all fiscally responsible, high-percentage public participation remains the holy grail of Chattanooga politics.

DePinto points to the great Northwest for proof that it can work. He sent Pulse News a report documenting that Portland, Oregon, has passed the halfway mark. That is, they actually recycle more tons of garbage than those going into their landfill. In fact, a call to the Portland Metro Government confirmed that 56 percent of their garbage is recycled. However, other answers were harder to come by, such as how much it costs the government, does the government recoup any of their expenditure from the sale of the recycled material, and what’s the overall carbon footprint of the recycling effort, trucks and cars included. The person with those answers will have to get back to us.

Those answers are a little more available locally. Increasing costs of running the truck fleet continues to erode the fiscal viability of the program. And one must question whether the residents of Portland have the same limitations on the recycling. In Chattanooga, there is literally a laundry list of things that cannot be curbside recycled. For example, glass is not being picked up, which means that one of the most readily-recycled materials must be brought to the collection centers. This negates much of the advantage of curbside recycling.

Many residents say it’s just too complicated and labor-intensive to recycle here, which is why they don’t participate. Another look at Portland shows that the city picks up metal, paper, plastic AND glass at curbside. Residents rarely have to go to a collection center to participate. And when they do there are two large ones. Portland residents can also collect a rebate if they separate and sort their recyclables themselves.

There’s no way to avoid the pink elephant in the room. Residents say if you make recycling easy and maybe even profitable for them, they will participate, and in greater numbers. Does the current plan offer that? No. But it’s a start. Every pound of material in a recycling center is one that didn’t make it to a landfill.