With the abrupt change made this week to the recycling schedule (that is now bi-weekly) we grew deeply concerned. Not because we think weekly pick-ups are ‘the way to go’. But because the change was made without any effort to inform or educate the public. As it is, through the hard work of Julie and Steve Noble and Jeanne Edwards, Kingston was sort of on the up and up on improving it’s recycling numbers. That might be history unless something is done and soon.
Sure, not every municipality offers recycling to their residents. That may even be where we are heading. The fact of the matter is, Kingston has offered it as a service and we have come to expect it. If more people now feel inconvenienced and decide to trash their plastics and all, we are not only heading in the wrong direction but we are also encouraging a whopper of an expense in the long run.
Why? At this time, Kingston pays UCRRA (Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency) $71 a ton to then ship our garbage up the river some 250 miles. That’s what makes it so expensive. Weigh that against the national average, which is around $42.08 per ton.
Landfills are close to capacity. Perhaps not this year or next, but in the very near future our garbage may be shipped even further away. Now does that make any sense?
So please, hold onto your recycling until your new scheduled pick-up day. Give your bottles and cans an extra wash out to prepare them to sit for a week longer. That only takes a few seconds of your time. If you simply can’t wait, delivering your recyclables, yard waste and brush to the transfer station is free.
Encourage your Alderman to help solve this problem through good discussion and solid examples by looking outside of Kingston to see what might be useful to us.
– Rebecca Martin
Here are a couple of helpful links.
City of Kingston: New Recycling/Yard Waste Pick-Up Schedule
KingstonCitizens.org: Why Pay As You Throw?
KingstonCitizens.org: Plastics By Numbers
Leave It On The Lawn, Kingston! Mulching and Composting Brochure
thank you! That got my attention… I will be more careful, and reduce my garbage footprint…
It would be nice to see the figures, how much we dump from week to week against a super recyle week…. We might, acting in concert, make some waves, make a noticeable drop in the costs to the city.
Thanks again… This is making my city a really fine place to live