Expanded Recycling Efforts Push Dearborn Ahead

Less than a year after switching to larger capacity 96-gallon recycling bins, the city of Dearborn is already well on its way to meeting proposed goals.

With a $1.2 million investment in the new bins for curbside recycling on the line, the city has already upped its percentage of waste recycled by 37 percent since last spring, on its way to the targeted 50 percent in three years.

“It’s actually pretty simple: they’re bigger containers, so people can recycle more,” Sustainability Director Dave Norwood said of the success. “I’m always happy with the capacity to do more, and it’s easy with the larger containers for people to recycle more.”

Along with an increase in volume for those who were using the old bins, Norwood said the new bins have enticed residents who were not taking part in the curbside program to take advantage of a single-stream system that allows them to collect plastic, glass and even items such as household batteries–as long as they are stored in a clear plastic bag–in one container for curbside pickup.

“We had a pilot program for one of our neighborhoods on the northeast side of town that wasn’t recycling as much,” Norwood said. “And once we started that program, Waste Management determined that our rates there had doubled. That success convinced the mayor to go ahead with the rest of the program.”

The full institution of the program was paid for with $300,000 in grant money as well $900,000 from a sanitation millage.

While the city has not been able to see a monetary return on the investment in the larger bins, Norwood said it’s not out of the realm of possibilities that it could.

“We did negotiate in our contract that, if the rates go up, we will get a benefit,” Norwood said. “It’s just that the commodities for glass and plastic right now aren’t real high.”

The increased recycling capacity is another step in the city’s continuing efforts to reduce the amount of its waste that ends up in landfills, and the next step could come in the form of a food waste composting program similar to one in use at the .

“The amount of trash we’re diverting from landfills says good things about the people of Dearborn,” Norwood said.

“Now we’re looking at our composting programs to partner with UM-Dearborn,” Norwood added. “They’ve been composting food waste with vermic cultures, which are pretty much worms eating food waste and creating compost. The way it works is that a worm eats your leftover orange peel or whatever else and gives you valuable compost.”

And if the precedent set by the larger containers to help boost the amount of waste recycled is an indication for future plans, Dearborn could be headed for greener pastures sooner rather than later.

“People’s minds have definitely changed about recycling, and we haven’t even had to use some of the hard-core recycling advertising campaigns other communities use,” Norwood said.

“We want to get to a 50-percent increase,” Norwood said. “We have three years to get to that point, and I feel we’ll really get there.”