Throw out recycling excuses

If recycling is dead easy, why do some people refuse to do it?

That's a question for Darryl Drohomerski, the city's solid waste manager. He has heard every excuse in the book, some inventive and some, well, plain stupid.

"A long-standing one, from about 10 years ago, is a picture of Coun. Lazarenko standing on top of a pile of recycling at the dump. The message was all the recycling goes straight to the dump. It's not true, but some people still have that perception, that they put it in a blue box and we take it to the dump. People cling to that."

The problem, says Drohomerski, is that some stuff that goes in a blue box does belong in the garbage.

"We get diapers, pieces of wood, eavestroughs. That stuff does go to the landfill."

There's one excuse that still floors Drohomerski and his team.

"I think the dumbest one I've heard is, 'I've lost (my blue box), broke it or whatever, so I want you to buy me another one.' Really? It's five bucks and we subsidize that.

"The one that gets me is people saying, 'I got my one blue box and I fill it and the rest goes in the garbage.' They want to know why we won't buy them another one. They say, 'I'm always going to throw it in the garbage. You better provide me with a better container.'

"Meanwhile, they're going to Costco and buying garbage bags every three months. It doesn't make sense."

Another chart-topper?

"My blue box got lost three years ago, so I stopped recycling."

His department gets one or two calls a week from people whose blue boxes have blown away, been stolen or have broken. They want a replacement at no charge.

(It's worth noting that the recycling guys will take your stuff away practically no matter what it's in. We've got two official blue boxes, a large blue Tupperware container and a green Tupperware container. As long as newspapers and empty wine bottles are sticking out, they're gone).

Another winner? The "too busy" excuse.

"You used to have to sort everything," Drohomerski says. "You'd have paper and cans and glass. Some people don't realize you don't have to sort anymore. When that changed, seven or eight years ago, our recycling rates jumped about 25 per cent."

People claim they'd recycle more if they had a rolling cart. Until they get a larger container, it goes in the trash:

" 'It's too difficult, too hard. I had a bad experience with recycling a few years ago, you missed my house once three years ago, my blue box bit me.' " Drohomerski sighs.

"If we miss your garbage for whatever reason, people take it personally. They think they're getting even by not recycling."

He says some people are wildly inventive with their excuses.

" 'You missed me six years ago' or 'I put out a chair with my recycling, but you didn't pick up the chair, so I stopped recycling.' "

Other people tell the city that because the program is voluntary, they want everything done for them. Drohomerski sometimes thinks people want city staff to go into garages to get the boxes.

"They don't understand that this benefits them, that we sell this stuff and it leads to lower tax rates. People respond with, 'yeah, yeah, whatever.' "

Winnipeg's recycling participation rate is 88 per cent. That's sounds great, but it means 20,000 people don't recycle at all. That's half the population of Brandon.

Some residents don't realize cardboard is recyclable. In fact, it's quite valuable right now.

"You have to keep telling people it's actually worth something. For the amount of time it takes to break it down and put it in the blue box, you should do it."

Drohomerski admits he has spotted cardboard in his neighbours' garbage, stopped, removed it and cut it down to size. Yep, he's that kind of zealot.

He calls it social networking.

So dust off your blue boxes, toss in everything you can and feel good about yourself.

If you don't, there's a possibility that Darryl Drohomerski will be prowling your boulevard.

lindor.reynolds@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 26, 2010 B1