Inquirer: Recycling reader will get her big can

It's tough when you want to do the right thing, but you have to wait to do it.

Concerned Reader Jean lives on Oates Avenue just north of Manchester Expressway and she wants to increase the amount of refuse she recycles. To do that, she wants to use one of the city's new 95-gallon cans, the kind that has a lid and wheels so she can wheel it out to the curb.

"I have called the city relentlessly," Jean wrote to me. "Most of our garbage can be recycled. I would love to teach our great grandchildren the importance of keeping God's beautiful planet lovely and clean for the next generation."

Jean implied that the reason she wasn't getting the larger can was because of where she lives, which is something of a working class neighborhood. Up until recently, she would have been right.

When the city started its new recycling program last year, when its new Sustainability Center came on line, they started a pilot program using 95-gallon cans with wheels and lids instead of the much smaller recycling bins that most of us use.

The city chose eight areas (one per council district) in which to give people the large cans. So I just assumed (and I was right) that Jean's neighborhood wasn't on the list. But the pilot program is over, so the list is moot now. Anyone can call and eventually get one of the larger cans.

The good news, according to Public Works Director Pat Biegler, is that Jean is on the new list and should receive her shiny new blue can this week sometime.

Biegler said the recycling program is doing very well, but because of budget constraints, the city bought only 2,500 of the large cans this year.

"When you have 56,000 customers, 2,500 cans don't go very far," Biegler said.

That said, if you want to get a 95-gallon can but there is too long of a waiting list to suit you, the city will sell you one for $50, which would allow the city to turn around and buy another one.

Biegler asks that people not buy their own cans because they might not be compatible with the special trucks equipped with hydraulic flippers that dump the heavy cans into the truck.

In the pilot areas in which practically all households used the large cans, recycling increased "substantially," Biegler said. In addition to that, more households are recycling, whether they use the large cans or the small bins.

"We used to stop at about every 12th house, but now we stop at about every seventh," Biegler said.

So we're doing much better, but not as well as Biegler says she wishes we could.

"I wish I had $2.2 million so every household could have one," Biegler said.

For my part, Concerned Readers, please recycle.

Seen something that needs attention? Contact me at 706-571-8570 or mowen@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published December 7, 2014 at 10:57 PM with the headline "Inquirer: Recycling reader will get her big can."