Residents of the District’s 102,000 households will receive recycling bins and program information within two weeks of the first collection day. Recycling collections will take place the same day as regular trash collection. About 25 percent of the District’s homes currently have twice-weekly trash pickup.

The Department of Public Works is still finalizing the schedule to let homeowners know which of those days will be the day their recyclables get collected. DPW spokesman Linda Grant said those homes will be notified by the first day of recycling.

Recycling collections will be made from the same site as residential trash collection, whether in the alley or curbside. Chief Management Officer Camille C. Barnett said that new, smaller garbage trucks will be put in service to facilitate alley recycling collection.

The 102,000 homes that will be involved in the residential recycling program do not include the 6,466 apartment buildings and all the office buildings in the District. All commercial buildings, including apartment and office buildings, are required to file recycling programs with DPW in compliance with the District’s recycling laws, said Grant. However, employees in the Solid Waste Management Office said only about 2,500 such plans are currently filed.

"It’s hard to ask the commercial sector to do something that you can’t do yourself," said Hallie Clemm, who works in the District’s office that oversees commercial recycling.

Commercial waste and recyclables account for about 70 to 75 percent of the trash generated in the District, according to the Solid Waste Management Office. Enforcing the District’s recycling laws has been nearly impossible, Clemm said.

"This has been a two-person office that has been struggling with no budget and no personnel," she said.

Clemm said that currently the office works on a case-by-case basis helping people with technical advice and guidance in setting up recycling programs for their buildings. She stressed the importance of making the residential recycling program work.

"We can’t make a case for more funding or people (for the commercial recycling program) until we have a successful residential recycling program," Clemm said.

The department also will be conducting a public relations campaign to inform residents about the revival of the recycling program that will include public service announcements, promotional literature, internet sites and school educational programs, Grant said.

"It is in everybody’s best interest that this program work well," Grant said.

Materials that residents can recycle are glass and metal food and beverage containers, plastic containers coded #1 and #2, aluminum foil, newspapers and inserts, magazines and catalogs, corrugated cardboard, brown paper bags, office paper and telephone books.

Residents will not be required to sort their recyclables, but all food and beverage containers should be rinsed out and newspapers should be tied or put in paper bags.

DPW Director Cellerino Bernardino acknowledged that the city expects initial compliance with the recycling laws will most likely be low. He said the city expects only 20 to 30 percent of households to participate in the recycling program in the first months.

When the recycling contract was cancelled in December of 1996, less than 15 percent of households were participating in the program, he said.

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator