-----Original Message-----
From: keneve <keneve@earthlink.net>
To: recycle@toxicsaction.org <recycle@toxicsaction.org>
Date: Tuesday, January 04, 2000 8:17 AM
Subject: recycling in condos
Vivian,
New York City provides curbside recycling for all residents, including high rises. The very biggest buildings and most New York HOusing authority complexes use large metal containers while the rest of the apartment buildings use blue bags for metals, glass, plastic and clear bags for newspaper, mixed paper, magazines. Corrugated cardboard is bundled with string, Newspapers can be bundled too.
I work for Hi-Rise Recycling Systems as the New York City recycling coordinator in buildings that buy our turntable/automated recycling system, and I have lots of experience trying to get apartment buildings to recycle better. I would suggest that the condos opt for a private hauler rather than municipal pick-up. The reason for this is getting full participation from all the apartments in the apartment building. If the condo owners either can get paid for certain materials or decrease costs for garbage removal (assuming garbage is picked up by private haulers as well) it encourages better participation and gives the board a stronger argument for implementing fines for non-cooperation. it also opens the way for special collections such as textiles, used computers, usable clothing, etc.
It is well documented that User Based Fees or Pay As You Throw systems encourage much greater participation because the recyclers are rewarded for recycling more.
Good luck!
Eve Martinez
keneve@earthlink.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 04 2000 - 08:13:45 EST