© 2024
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
An update has been released for the Android version of the WAMC App that addresses performance issues. Please check the Google Play Store to download and update to the latest version.

City Residents Urged To Be More Careful About Recycling

Recycling containers
WAMC

The  city of Springfield, which pioneered single-stream recycling in Massachusetts, has launched an education and enforcement campaign in an effort to keep recycling rates up and trash disposal costs down.

The Springfield Department of Public Works said an unacceptable amount of trash and other prohibited items have been turning up lately in the recycling containers people put out for curbside pick-up. Some contamination of the recyclables is allowed, but if it exceeds ten percent the city faces fines, according to Springfield’s recycling coordinator Greg Superneau.

" It was trending in the wrong direction."

Springfield uses a single-stream recycling program where residents put glass, metal, plastics and paper into a single large blue container collected every other week.  Lately a number of prohibited items have been found in the recycling containers including plastic toys, window blinds and bubble wrap.

" They may technically be recyclable, but are not within the system we operate."

Superneau said a list of the so-called “dirty dozen” items that are not allowed in the city’s recycling program is advertised on flyers being distributed at libraries and community centers and posted on the city’s website.

The DPW has also begun compliance checks. People found to have put prohibited items in recycling bins will receive two warnings before a $50 fine is levied.

" I would be happy if we issued no fines. But, we will issue fines to repeat violators if that's what it takes," said Superneau.

Springfield began single-stream recycling in 2008 with a pilot program in one neighborhood. The following year Mayor Domenic Sarno announced a city-wide rollout.

" As the city of Springfield continues to go green this is not only good for the environment, but good for the city's bottom line."

Recycling saves Springfield an estimated $250,000 in annual trash disposal costs.  The city recycles about 8,500 tons of solid waste a year – double the rate before the single-stream program.

Ninety-seven municipalities in Massachusetts – encompassing about half the state’s population -- have single-stream recycling programs, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.         

DEP’s municipal recycling branch chief Brooke Nash applauds Springfield’s efforts  to sustain a strong single-stream recycling program.

" I think there is probably a little more of a temptation with single-stream recycling for people to just throw it all in there and figure it'll get recycled. Education is critical and it has to be on-going."

Just under 40 percent of all municipal solid waste in Massachusetts is recycled. The national recycling rate in 2012 was 34.5 percent, according to the EPA.

The record-setting tenure of Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno. The 2011 tornado and its recovery that remade the largest city in Western Massachusetts. The fallout from the deadly COVID outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home. Those are just a few of the thousands and thousands of stories WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill has covered for WAMC in his nearly 17 years with the station.
Related Content