Mike Zajdel, center, throws an old headboard into a scrap pile at the Twiss Street Recycling Center as his dad Dave, rear left, removes debris from the pickup truck yesterday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – A team of municipal officials are working to institute a single-stream recycling program for city residents by the end of the year, but are identifying new challenges as the program takes shape.
The team includes Community Development Director Peter J. Miller Jr., City Purchaser Tammy Tefft, Health Director Joe Rouse, Sanitarian Barry Searle, who has fostered the city’s recycling initiatives to date, and Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Public Works Casey Berube.
The driver of this pickup truck prepares to unload in the Twiss Street Recycling Center yesterday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik said this week that funding for the transition to single-stream recycling “is all in the (2015 FY) budget.”
“The team has already started the ball rolling logistically to get it started,” Knapik said.
The single-stream recycling plan is intended to increase the volume of material recycled and reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills or incinerators. The city receives some revenue for recycled materials, but it is the cost-avoidance aspect of reducing the volume of solid waste which makes single-stream attractive.
The city’s program will convert residents’ current 96-gallon trash barrel into a single-stream recycling barrel, eliminating the need for bins now used to recycle cans and bottles and paper, bins which do not have wheels and are awkward to carry to the curb.
The city will purchase new 65-gallon trash barrels with less volume than the current barrels to encourage residents to recycle more material.
Miller said several questions have been identified and have to be answered as the plan transitions into a live program.
“We’re waiting for a barrel count from Public Works,” Miller said. “We’d like to place an order for the new barrels within a week or two. We’re still working with Tammy (Tefft) on some procurement issues.”
One of those issues is how many barrels will be needed for the conversion to single-stream. The city sends out 11,800 solid waste bills, but there are more barrels than billing accounts.
“We suspect that the actual number is over 13,000 because of doubles, families with more than one barrel, and a number of barrels at municipal buildings,” Miller said. “We’re looking at placing an order by the middle of August for between 12,000 and 14,000 for the new 65 gallon trash barrels.”
Another issue is the way that the current trash barrels, which will become the single-stream recycling barrel, are identified. The original concept was to have a crew go into neighborhoods during curbside trash collection days and physically replace the grey lid with a new yellow lid.
“We’ve talked to a couple of vendors about that,” Miller said. “The cost estimate for the yellow lids is about $200,000 which is more than we’re interested in spending.”
Miller said the team is now accessing a different approach, attaching a sticker, with a strong adhesive, to the existing barrel lid.
“We’re trying to determine the most economical way to identify the old barrels,” Miller said.
“The plan is to implement single-stream recycling by the end of this year, but there will have to be a lot of resident education that goes with it,” Miller said. “The Health Department is working on that program as part of the transition.”
