Curbside Recycling anyone?

Frau Frugal and I were dropping off our weekly recyclables at the collection center near our haus over the weekend. I was encouraged to find the dumpsters there to be pretty full, which is a good sign. While there another patron stopped by and began a 10 minute tirade as to why she did not understand why we did not have curbside recycling (mandatory) in our area. 'They had it down in Sarasota, why not here?", she said.

Frau Frugal and I kept our mouths shut as we have a canned argument as to why curbside recycling is NOT a good solution to recycling and a positive impact to our environment at this time.

Think of it this way, as I heard a reinforcing argument on Florida Matters on WUSF.org last week. The same type of trucks pick up the recycling contents as they pick up your refuse. The average stop for refuse is about 50 to 60 lbs of garbage. Recycling is 4 to 8 pounds per stop. Think of the amount of CO and CO2 and hydrocarbons being released into the air just for those stops. The expert on this program stated the city of Los Angeles uses over 800 trucks for both refuse and curbside. Eliminating curbside would cut that fleet in half!

Conveniently, I received my Men's Health magazine last week and the city of St. Petersburg received a grade of "F" for their efforts. Sounds bad, but I completely get Mayor Baker's stand on curbside service. Here is the article for your review: http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category=metrogrades&conitem=8033017eecf1f110VgnVCM10000013281eac____

So, the Frugal's opinion on curbside recycling is this: Curbside recycling can only be effective if done so in a responsible manner and is not done as a matter of conscious driven necessity. In otherwords, create/foster/mandate an environmentally friendly collection system, then I am on board. Use an electric or natural gas powered vehicle. Do NOT use the same type of transport as the refuse collection. Until then, we choose to go to the center as part of our routine, not a special trip, just incorporate the stop into our errands.

Thanks for visiting our haus!