BALTIMORE — It's not every day you find people who are this excited about recycling.
"And I don't know if that's my age, or just the fact that it's been so long!" joked Dawn Gannon.
When Gannon saw the city's announcement that Baltimore would once again have weekly recycling pick-ups, she immediately brought the news to a group chat.
"Our neighbor said 'thanks sweet Jesus,' and I sent the GIF of Rachel and Phoebe jumping up and down in Friends," she said as she showed us the messages, and laughed.
Two years ago, the city switched to bi-weekly recycling pick-ups, citing COVID-related staffing shortages.
“We’re all very excited that it’s going back to weekly because we've all been stealing each other's recycling cans and trying to figure out, does anyone have an extra box we can put our recycling in, because it was just overflowing," Gannon said.
“It’s not the end of the world, but definitely with two weeks going between the two intervals, I feel like a lot piles up. We have the bigger bins from the city but with boxes from Amazon and other stuff in the mail, there’s no great place to store that. So I would just find in that last week leading up to when the recycling was gonna come get picked up, I would have boxes on my back porch, and stuff in the house. So I’m excited to be able to move that stuff along a little more quickly," Canton resident Sara Mixter said.
The return to recycling normalcy came thanks to three moves the city DPW made:
1. Hiring more than 60 new staff, specifically for recycling.
2. Optimizing the routes to make crews more efficient
3. Ordering 80 new trucks
That was the part that took the longest.
"We placed the order for those trucks back in 2021, and we've gotten 20 of those 80 trucks that we ordered. But Baltimore requires specialized trucks. Our trucks are actually much more narrow than the ones you see for other municipalities, and that's because 60% of our routes require alleyway pick-ups," Interim DPW Director Richard Luna said. "And in Baltimore we have very narrow alleyways so we actually have to order specialized trucks and through supply-chain issues, especially from the pandemic, it takes longer to get some of these newer vehicles."
During the pandemic, DPW noted an increase in recycling material from city residents, something Luna says continues.
“The numbers are still steadily increasing, which is great, we want more people recycling.”
The money for the new trucks and the new staff came from a combination of COVID relief American Rescue Plan Act funding, and the city's general fund. AARPA funding is one-time use, so the staff's salaries will move over to the general fund next fiscal year.
We asked Luna if there was a negative environmental impact from the disruptions to the recycling schedule.
“Actually if you look at our overall tonnage rates, the trash is actually declining at the same rate that the recycleables are increasing. So that’s the pace we want to continue. We want to keep diverting as much material away from the landfills as possible," Luna said.
Luna took over as Interim DPW Director after the previous director, Jason Mitchell, stepped down, one year after the switch to bi-weekly recycling pick-ups. At the time, he cited family and health-related concerns, but his resignation came hours after two city councilmen publicly pressured him to restore weekly pick-ups. "If you cannot begin to resume full weekly recycling pickup within the next eight weeks, we will call for your resignation as DPW administrator," Councilman Zeke Cohen and Councilman Isaac Yitzy Schleifer wrote in the letter.
“We’ve gone through challenging times as a city and as an agency," Luna said today. "We put the necessary hard work in place to really study the issue, and understand what kind of resources were needed to implement weekly recycling."
He also noted increased technology features the new trucks will have, including 360 cameras to keep drivers safe.
"When Mayor Scott took office, our crews were still using paper maps. So we brought on a vendor to come in and help digitize all of our routes. That really was the data we needed to optimize what our routes were gonna look like.”
The DPW is also reminding people to "recycle right," using the following checklist:
1. Know Your Materials: Familiarize yourself with the types of materials that can be recycled by visiting Baltimore City's Recycle Right Tool. [lnks.gd] Stay informed about what goes in your recycling bin.
2. Recycling Bin Ready: Make sure your recycling bin is in good condition with a secure lid. If you have moved and are in need of a bin, please call 311 or submit a service request online [lnks.gd].
3. Clean and Empty: Help the recycling process by rinsing containers before recycling, ensure items are free of food residue.
4. Flatten Cardboard: Save space in your recycling bin and assist your crews with easy sorting by breaking down and flattening cardboard boxes.
5. No Plastic Bags: Do not place recyclables in plastic bags. Instead, deposit items directly into the bin.
