personal freedoms. “I think it’s the most communist thing I’ve ever heard of when they tell us we have to use a garbage can; we’re not being asked to use it. I don’t approve of it. I don’t like it a bit,” stated one hotline caller. “The concept of forcing people to participate in recycling is un-American. Frankly, it’s un-American to penalize us to do that,” said another. City officials expected some negative feedback, which is why they undertook a carefully planned, professionally executed marketing strategy that included a user-friendly website (curbit.cityofboise.org), multiple mailings and meetings with neighborhood associations in an effort to slowly and carefully make their case while helping ease residents through the largest
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change to the city’s trash program ever. Now, not only is Boise’s program thriving, but nearly every city in the valley has a similar trash and recycling program. “There was a lot of pressure, and it is gratifying,” said Paul Woods, Boise’s environmental division manager, as a smile spread across his face. City managers have reason to have a little swagger in their step when it comes to recycling. With a roughly 95 percent participation rate among the just fewer than 70,000 households serviced by Allied Waste in Boise, Woods and others say the program has exceeded all of their expectations. In fact, a recent survey conducted by the Boise Public Works Department reported that 42 percent of respondents felt trash service
was much better, and 67 percent felt that recycling was much better than before the new program started. Allied Waste also services Eagle, Garden City, Star, outlying areas of Meridian and unincorporated Ada County. While recycling participation isn’t quite as high in some of these areas as it is in Boise, participation across Ada County is roughly 90 percent, estimates Rachele Klein, business development manager for Allied Waste in Idaho. Kuna is the only city in Ada County that is not part of the recycling program. “We’re really pleasantly surprised in all the municipalities,” Klein said. “New people joined the ranks of recyclers because it was easy and they had the space.” According to Allied Waste, the average home
produces 200 pounds of waste per month. Currently, about 35 pounds of that is going into recycling, double the rate before the Curb It program began. Klein said while those numbers are good, the company and city hope to have that number up to 50 pounds of recycling per month. Some in the community have raised concerns that some of their neighbors are signing up for recycling for the $4 per month credit on their bill, without actually recycling. While this may happen, officials said they aren’t concerned about it occurring on a large scale. Besides, if you’re a recycling scofflaw, they know who you are. “We don’t have concerns that people are abusing it,” Klein said. “You see nearly all the carts out if you drive up any street. Drivers know which houses recycle and don’t.” And, she said, they’ll eventually flag homes who fail to put out any recycling. The slightly controversial RFID chips embedded in each trash and recycling cart also give officials the ability to track just how often carts are put out for collection (although city officials stress there is no way the scanners can record what’s actually in the carts, despite initial big-brother conspiracy theories that the government was tracking exactly what was in our trash). While only a few trial routes are testing the scanners, the system is slated to be used citywide eventually. Catherine Chertudi, who heads the trash program for the city’s Environmental Division, said roughly 68 percent of those who are part of the recycling program put their carts out every time a pickup is scheduled (every other week), adding that others put recycling out less frequently. If a customer fails to use his or her recycling cart, the city and Allied have the ability to remove the house from the program, and thereby take the discount away. But so far, that hasn’t happened. “I think people are better about being honest,” Klein said. Drivers also have the ability to tag recycling carts filled with what officials call “contaminated” materials—basically anything you’re not supposed to put in the recycling carts, including yard waste, Styrofoam and glass. Drivers will refuse to empty these carts and leave a note explaining why. If people persist in breaking the rules, the city can take the cart. Public education efforts are ongoing, but now they’re based on teaching people what they can’t recycle—no Styrofoam, plastic film or hazardous waste. But getting a true measure of just how much trash is being diverted from the landfill is a challenge in itself. Recycling is measured by weight but trash put into the landfill is measured in cubic yards. And while officials have rough guesses of just how much a cubic yard of trash weighs, comparisons are difficult. To help streamline the process, the Seaman’s Gulch Landfill has installed massive scales to actually weigh incoming trash. The system is undergoing testing and should be running later this year. “We’ll have a better estimate on what’s going on,” Klein said. The switch also means a change in how the city is billed for trash but just what that WWW. B O I S E WE E KLY. C O M