2005 Recycling Pilot Program Report

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Scenario B: Single-stream in contrast demographic area SingleStream Contrast Area Collection Schedule Bi-Weekly Recycling Containers 64-gallon cart Number of Households 367 Participation Rate 94.3% Avg. Lbs Collected per HH per Routel 34.39 Most Important ComponentZ Convenience 9.73 Resident Satisfaction 76.2% Willing to Pay More 64% Derived irom Appendix H Table 3 net average pounds per household calculations 20n a scale of 1- 4 with 1 being lhe mast important In this testing area residents were provided a single 64-gallon cart for the commingled collection of all their recyclable rnaterial. This collection method xneasured the impacts of a simplified sorting system for the residents along with a different collection container. Residents remained on the every other week collection schedu�e. This area had 367 homes — 22 more than the next closest area and 24 homes above the average sample size. Wl�en asked in the pre-survey what would motivate them io recycle more the residents rated larger bins (40.2%) slightly ahead of a financial rebate (39.8%). Residents in this area were strong recyclers to begin with — 90% participation rate in the "before" period. In the "during" pe�iod, participation rose to 94.3%. While this was the lowest percenfiage increase, this area had very little roora to iixa.prove. It remained the highest participating area. This area also had the highest set out rate in the "before" period — 82.3% of residents had recycling at the curb on collection day. This was 7% higher than the Control area a�d 13% higher than the next highest test area. In the "during" period the set out rate increased to 90.1 % sti116% greater than the next closest area. This was the #hird highest percentage increase. The single-stream test areas had an occ�xrrence not found in any of the other areas — people who stopped putting out material for collection. In this area 1.9% of the participants became non-participants in the "during" period. There was no contact with any participants in this area who stopped putti�g rnaterial out for collection (see Scenario A). There was a marked increase in contamina.nts in the single-stream areas that was discovered in the composition sorts. Contaminant categories in the sorts included: beer, pop and water boxes; plastic bags and filzn, other paper trash, other irash and fines. Data from the composition sorts shows contaminants increased fram 4.8% of the sazxxple in the "before" period to 9.2% in the "dnring" periad. The increase in contaminants may be due, in part, to residents in this area not being aware of what was accepted in the program. Almost 24% of the residents in the pre-survey said they threw recyclable material in the garbage because they are unsure of what to recycle. That was a higher level of uncertainty than in any 27