On a typical day recycling can be confusing, but in a pandemic it can feel downright discouraging. Evolving health and safety guidelines plus heavy increases in household waste fuel doubts about what’s in, what’s out, and whether it’s possible to safely reduce and reuse. New Canaan recently contracted a new waste management company from Danbury, Oak Ridge Waste and Recycling, further impacting our recycling routine. How is COVID-19 disrupting U.S. waste and recycling? How can I safely reduce and reuse?
What’s the deal with recycling? Confusion about what’s acceptable, doubts about where it all goes and whether costs outweigh benefits are questions we literally can’t afford to leave unanswered. With our municipal budgets stretched to the max and the effects of climate change looming large, it’s critical for us to understand the proper way to recycle in New Canaan–and the cost to each of us when we get it wrong. Join our team of local recycling and waste management professionals for straight talk on the “how” and “why” of recycling in our town. Our own Tiger Mann, Director of New Canaan Public Works, will be joined by Jennifer Heaton-Jones, Executive Director of the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority, and Jay Greco and Patricia Swope from City Carting to give us everything we need to get recycling right.
Saying a dramatic turn in the recyclables market is hitting the town, officials last week approved a $197,000 one-year contract with a Stamford company to haul and dispose of glass, plastic, paper and other materials discarded at the Transfer Station. The hauling of recyclables has “changed considerably in the last couple of years” due in part to a problem with glass that breaks in the single-stream system, so that where towns such as New Canaan “used to make a little bit of money,” they’re “now getting charged a lot of money to get rid of it,” according to Don Smith, assistant superintendent of solid waste with the Department of Public Works. “China is no longer taking it,” Smith told members of the Board of Selectmen at their Dec. 4 meeting, held at Town Hall. “They are just trying to find markets to get rid of it, and a lot of people don’t want it.”
The changing market is increasing New Canaan’s recycling costs by about five times, officials said.
Town officials are trying to figure out whether and just how New Canaan could benefit by incorporating single-stream recycling into its solid waste collection system. Right now, residents sign on with private haulers to collect trash and (many) bring their own recyclables to the Transfer Station to sort them. In single-stream recycling, a contracted company could send a collection truck to pick up from a designated, distributed bin commingled paper, plastic, glass and other recyclable materials. The matter of single-stream recycling—for which New Canaanites voiced support in a recent Conservation Commission survey—arose at the most recent Board of Selectmen meeting. There, the selectmen approved a $31,000 one-year contract with City Carting to haul and dispose commingled recyclables from the Transfer Station (New Canaan through that contract gets an annual rebate of more than $27,000).
