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Dear
Ann, The
reason your hauler hasn’t describe the cons of single stream may be because
he/she doesn’t experience them. We’ve found that the community
often finds out about the cons after they have made the change and it is very
difficult to reverse this decision. Here are some things we learned as we tried
to decide if we were going to try out single stream. We
just completed a fourteen month study of different collection methods and their
impact on the cost, convenience and environmental impact. I think my partner
already sent you the information about the study but if not you can find it on
our website below. We also have a slide presentation that is very informative. From
the collectors perspective there are definite gains from single stream. They
can use the same vehicles that they use for trash and they can compact the heck
out of the stuff getting more material in a load. This can be cost efficient when
the recycling facility is far away from the community. Of
course the material is then so compacted that a large percentage of it is
useless or landfill cover at best. Our
residents where surveyed about several issues including this one and 98%
concluded that landfill cover is not an acceptable use of their recycling
efforts. Talk about the fleecing of In
our study the residents did not respond with more participation or material in
two stream versus single stream. So although the
single most widely heard assumption behind single stream, i.e., that folks think it is simpler and use it more, was an incorrect
assumption. In
fact the same amount of folks participated in two or single stream with surprisingly
more material set out in the two stream weekly than
single stream. At the end of the day more material had to be discarded in the
single stream program too so the net recovery was the worst. The
cost as proposed by the hauler also resulted in the single stream collection
being the most expensive option per ton. The
final results were that single stream did not increase convenience since
residents like two stream as much or more. Single
stream did not improve environmental outcome since on average 18% was discarded
( up to 25%) and finally it did not improve costs
since it was the most expensive program cost per ton recycled. Hope
this helps, Susan Susan
Hubbard NEW
EMAIL ADDRESS: susanh@eurekarecycling.org Visit
our NEW WEBSITE! www.eurekarecycling.org Eureka
Recycling, a nonprofit organization created by the |