Population:
Type of Community:
Type of Program:
Program Start Date:
Two years after the
program started, a
city councilman who
had voted against
the new program
came up to me in a
local store with a
smile on his face and
simply said 'You
know, you were
right.' Then I knew
the program was
really working.
EPA530-F-97-007a
PAY-AS-YOU-THROW SUCCESS STORIES
PoqUOSOn, Virginia
11,500
Suburban
Bags
July 1992
With pay-as-you-throw, we've had the
largest amount of recyclables collected
in our nine-community regional
recycling program for four years,
Getting Started: Why Pay-As-You-Throw?
In the fall of 1991, we decided to shut down
a very successful drop-off recycling center
and join a regional curbside program the
next spring. Our main reason for going with
the curbside program was that we knew we
could get better citizen participation and
further increase recycling. Because of the
success of the drop-off program, we were
asked by the city council to review the city
trash program and develop a plan to
improve it.
Our group was made up of about a dozen
interested citizens, two city employees, and
two city councilmen. One of the first things
we did was to develop the following mission
statement: "To review every aspect of waste
management in Poquoson to maximize
REDUCTION, REUSE, and RECYCLING,
and to recommend ways to accomplish this
with the minimum cost
to the taxpayer."
This statement
was read at the
start of every
meeting to make
sure we stayed
focused on our
agreed-upon goal.
After discussing all
types of different programs, we decided to
focus on a fairly new system that was volume-
based and where people paid for the amount
of trash they discarded, rather than a flat-fee
system.
Bringing the Opposition on Board
We called and talked to people involved
with these different programs and found
out what problems and successes they
were having. We eventually ended up with
two three-inch binders full of information.
After many meetings and sometimes heated
discussions, we were ready to submit our
basic recommendations to the city council
and the public. At the public hearing, seven
people talked against the
.
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plan, and the city council seemed split
on the issue. The word "change" is
usually not well accepted in Poquoson.
We invited the seven speakers against
our plan to join our committee and
work with us to develop a final recom-
mendation. In the end, the six that
joined us supported the final plan.
Bags, Tags, or Cans?
Another big question was: Do we use
bags, stickers, or containers? Our
research showed that stickers are being
counterfeited in one city and that there
is no effective way to control bag size.
Containers required a large, upfront
capital cost, and we wanted to develop
a program that required no additional
cost to the city. Furthermore, we are a
very windy city—and typically after a
trash pickup empty trash cans roll all
over the neighborhoods! Since all of
our trash was being sent to a waste-to-
energy (WTE) plant and not a landfill,
plastic bags were not a negative as far
as disposal was concerned. We decid-
ed to use plastic bags.
How Best To Distribute
the Bags?
Although many cities sell their bags from
city office locations, this puts a big bur-
den on city personnel and can be incon-
venient for citizens. We talked with all
our grocery, drug, and convenience
stores and set up a program in which
they would sell the bags and turn over
all the proceeds to the city after they
were sold. In other words, they would
make no profit on selling the bags, but
also would have no investment in them.
It was pointed out to them that this
would be a community service.
Spreading the Word
The next step was informing the public
of the new program, how it would
work, and when it would start. We pre-
pared news releases for our local
papers, wrote articles for the city
newsletter, and made a videotape of the
program using local talent that was then
shown on the city public access channel.
We also trained speakers about the
subject and made them available to
any groups that were interested.
"We're number one
every time"
We are part of a regional recycling pro-
gram with nine other cities and counties.
Because of the way our trash program
encourages recycling, our city has had
the largest amount of recyclables collect-
ed per house, per month for the entire
four years we have been in the program.
We're not number one most of the
time, we're number one every time.
Poquoson's success story was compiled by Bob Kerlinger, Recycling Committee Chair,
868-3779.
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