Multimedia Reporting (Adler-Utsler)

Lauri Routh has spent years touring landfills as a waste inspector for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. Throughout her trips, she has seen tons of plastic bottles, aluminum cans and other recyclable materials lying amongst the mounds of trash.

“It’s an enormous amount of waste, much of which is recyclable,” said Routh. “You have to go to landfills enough to understand the scale of things.”

Years of seeing exactly how much waste goes into each facility has made Routh passionate about recycling – so much so that she has spent the last four years serving as a member on the city’s Sustainability Advisory Board.

For years, Routh and other members of the Sustainability Advisory Board have urged the city of Lawrence to sponsor curbside recycling. For years, the city has denied the board’s request because of the high cost of curbside recycling. Finally, the city is making a compromise. Next year, the Waste Reduction and Recycling Division plans to send out an interest to residents about curbside recycling.

A few years ago, members of the Sustainability Advisory Board decided to focus their efforts, said Chris Cobb, another board member. The board, which advises the City Commission and city staff on issues about recycling and resource conservation, was afraid that it might be spreading itself too thin, Cobb said. The board decided to make curbside recycling its main goal.

Currently, the Lawrence Waste Reduction and Recycling Division offers residents many ways to recycle, mainly through its drop-off recycling locations, but Routh said that drop-off bins may not be doing enough.

Drop-off recycling programs presume a motivated resident and presume that every resident owns a car, Routh said.

“In a community where there are a lot of students, this is not necessarily a logical assumption,” Routh said.

Routh said that she hopes a convenient curbside recycling program would not only increase recycling, but change the community’s attitude toward recycling, as well.

“It’s not entirely about the numbers. Our objective is to improve the overall sustainability of the community,” Routh said.

With the average Kansan throwing away four to five pounds of trash per day, Routh said that the larger goal of curbside recycling is to make people more aware of their impacts on the environment. She said that if residents are given a convenient way to separate recyclables from their trash, they might think twice about how much can be recycled and not just thrown away.

“Curbside recycling becomes a behavioral mechanism for change,” Routh said.

But with Lawrence's landfill fees so low, at $19.15 per ton, the Solid Waste Division doesn't see curbside recycling as cost-effective.

“Kansas is a state that loves landfills.” Routh said. “It's so cheap to get rid of garbage that there is no incentive to implement curbside recycling.”

Routh said that the waste division should not make its opinion on curbside recycling based on economics alone.

“Recycling will never be cheaper than $20 a ton,” Routh said. “We have to think about: Why do we want to recycle?”

The Solid Waste Division said that the city is already recycling a lot of materials without
an expensive curbside program.

“We get applauded for doing a lot for a little bit of money. Our compost facility is something to be proud of,” said Kathy Richardson, operations supervisor of the Waste Reduction and Recycling Division.

Using its current methods of recycling, Lawrence achieved an overall recycling rate of 34 percent in 2003, which was higher than the national average of 30.6 percent.

“We’re diverting a lot of materials right now and it’s not costing us as much as curbside recycling would,” Richardson said.

In 2004, Bob Yoos, the Solid Waste Division manager, prepared a report which estimated that a bi-weekly curbside recycling program would cost a total of $2,276,714 per year.

In Lawrence, the Solid Waste Division is set up as an enterprise fund, meaning that it does not receive tax dollars. In order to fund curbside recycling, the total cost would have to be split up among all of the residents, increasing each household’s trash fees by $7.59 per month.

“We can’t add a service like that without increasing the cost,” Richardson said.

Based off of a waste study from 1995, Yoos's report estimated that a curbside recycling program would increase the city’s recycling rate by no more than 3.5 percent.

“The main benefit from having a curbside collection program for recyclables would be the convenience the program would provide to residents. The overall increase in the recycling rate would be very small and at considerable cost,” Yoos said.

After years of arguing that curbside recycling is not worth the cost, the Solid Waste Division is ready to hear what the residents of Lawrence think.

In August, the Lawrence City Commission approved $10,000 to be set aside in the 2008 budget to conduct a citywide interest survey about curbside recycling. The survey will be sent out to a minimum of 400 residents.

“Would you want curbside if it cost you $5 per month? Would you still support curbside if it cost you $8 per month?” Richardson asked, listing hypothetical survey questions. “When we try to consider programs like this, it always comes down to the money.”

Though a survey does not guarantee that the city will start a curbside program, Cobb said that the survey is a victory for the advisory board.

“When the city letter goes out, we will celebrate that as a step in the right direction,” Cobb said.

The Solid Waste Division is unsure of what the outcome of the survey will be.

“As employees of the city, we really don’t know,” Richardson said. “Everyone might be surprised that when you add the cost factor, not too many people will support [curbside recycling].”

Come 2008, the city will have an answer. A ‘no’ will mean that residents are not ready to take on the cost of curbside recycling. A ‘yes’ will signify that residents are ready for a change.