Fine-Tuning Recycling In Newtown

Collectively, Newtowners are more successful recyclers than the residents of other towns in the region, leaving 36 tons of materials for recovery and reuse in bins at the side of the road in an average week. But an examination of how the municipality itself recycles these resources shows high interest and good intention on the part of local administrators, but sometimes the follow-through gets swept up with the trash.

Recycling has been required by law in Connecticut since 1991. The Connecticut Recycling Act applies to every business, household, institution, school, and government agency in the state and requires that all glass food and beverage containers, metal food and beverage containers, newspapers, corrugated cardboard, leaves, scrap metal, used motor oil, lead-acid batteries, white office paper (except for residential households), grass clippings, and nickel-cadmium batteries be recycled.

Newtown is one of 11 towns in Connecticut that belongs to the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority (HRRA), and in the HRRA region, magazines, catalogs, and plastic bottles with a neck must all be recycled, as well.

“All of the town offices and schools must participate,” said Cheryl Reedy, director of HRRA.

Newtown residents are provided with curbside recycling containers that are picked up by a private contractor each week, and the service is paid for through taxes paid to the town. New residents or those who do not presently have recycling bins can find out their weekly pickup day and receive a recycling bin by calling Public Works at 270-4300, said Mary Kelley, administrative assistant at the selectman’s office in Edmond Town Hall. It is one recycling program that has been quite successful.

“As a community, Newtown leads the region [in recycling] because of municipal collection,” said Cheryl Reedy. In 2006, she said, the transfer station received 1,874 tons total of recyclables from residential pickup. It is an impressive number, but not as impressive as previous years. In 2003, Newtown processed 2,061 tons of recyclables. “Tonnage is dropping off over the last four years,” said Ms Reedy. “It’s not just Newtown. It’s across the board.”

She attributes the drop to a need to continually educate the public, including the municipalities. “People forget over time. They are very excited and participate in the beginning, and then they begin to lose interest,” she surmised.

But there are many reasons for residents to recycle, beyond the fact that it is the law, said Ms Reedy. “The most compelling reason is the difference recycling can make in the environment and in global changes. It takes less energy to make products from recyclables, for instance. It reduces CO2 and it reduces dependence on foreign oil.”

Other positive impacts due to recycling in the HRRA region in 2006 include 60,000 trees saved, 24,000 barrels of oil, and 1.1 million gallons of gasoline saved, Ms Reddy pointed out. “We have removed the equivalent of 2,000 passenger cars from the roads through recycling,” she said.

At a cost of $78 per ton to dispose of solid waste garbage versus $39 per ton to dispose of recyclables, it is also more cost-effective for a town or business to recycle, said Ms Reedy. “The cost, of course, can rise and fall based on the price of recyclable commodities. Businesses do need to look around for competitive haulers.”

One of the ways the HRRA is trying to improve recycling in municipalities is through the formation this past May of the Regional Recycling Task Force. “The purpose is to have municipal facilities lead by example,” Ms Reedy said.

Diligence At The Library

The C.H. Booth Library is one public building in Newtown that is fairly diligent about recycling, said librarian Kim Weber. “We’re pretty good about office paper. A lot of it we reuse as scrap paper and the colored paper is reused for projects, although we would never reuse any paper with any patrons’ information on it,” she said. A bin in the main office is provided for additional paper and junk mail, which the custodian delivers to the transfer station, along with glass, plastic, boxes, and cardboard, said Ms Weber. Newspapers are collected by patrons who reuse them.

Other ways in which the library tries to be environmentally sensitive include reusing padded envelopes and encouraging patrons to donate used padded envelopes, bubble wrap, and plastic bags; a switch to compact florescent bulbs whenever possible; and the recent decision to send overdue notices via e-mail rather than mailing them. “It will cost the library less to do so, and use less paper.”

The C.H. Booth Library serves as a recycling station of sorts, as well, pointed out Ms Weber. “We collect eyeglasses for the Lions Club, cellphones for the Newtown Woman’s Club, and printer cartridges for Spay and Neuter Association of Newtown.”

Last but not least, said Ms Weber, “The Annual Book Sale is a whole recycling event in itself.”

First selectman Herb Rosenthal believes that the town offices are doing a good job recycling. “It’s all part of the same idea of the Green Initiative on energy,” said Mr Rosenthal. “All of the town buildings are supposed to be recycling, and all of the department heads know that. If they’re not, I will take corrective action,” said Mr Rosenthal, who serves as treasurer for HRRA.

Recyclables from town offices and buildings are either collected by custodians and brought to the transfer station on Ethan Allen Road, or are taken care of by Newtown Public Works, said Mr Rosenthal.

One day a week, the town sends someone to pick up recyclables for the town buildings and the police station and bring them to the transfer station, said Fred Hurley, director of Newtown Public Works. “Paper, newspapers, bottles, cans, plastics 1 and 2 are all recycled here in town,” he said.

What Mr Hurley has observed is the importance of keeping interest in recycling going through education. “When we get away from education, the numbers of tonnage [of recyclables] drops. We are starting to push a book for kids about recycling with the elementary age kids. If you get the kids going [on recycling], they taunt the parents into more recycling,” Mr Hurley said.

Mixed Success In The Schools

With seven public schools in town, it would seem that there is ample opportunity to educate the youth in Newtown. One of the five labs and associated research activities embedded in the ninth and tenth grade science curriculum does include Global Interdependence. Districtwide science programs for lower grades that focus on the environment, and recycling, have also been implemented in recent years.

As a source of hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of used paper and other recyclables, the schools certainly have the opportunity to lead by example. That leadership, however, is not always obvious.

In a review of the Newtown School District’s recycling policy, various sources offered different takes on recycling in the schools when contacted by The Newtown Bee.

According to Newtown Board of Education Director of Business Ron Bienkowski, the school holds one contract for $92,000 [with Danbury Carting] to remove trash and separate it. “We don’t have the manpower or the space to do separate recycling,” Mr Bienkowski said.

Despite Mr Bienkowski’s comments, Gino Faiella has seen in the six weeks he has been on the job as head of maintenance for Newtown schools that custodians and staff at every school are recycling as best they can. The staff reports, however, that their efforts are frequently hampered by the improper use of the recycling containers.

“I think we’re there [on recycling], except for a few gray areas,” said Mr Faiella. “There’s always room for improvement, of course.”

What Mr Faiella would like to implement down the line is a standardized system so that all of the schools handle recycling in the same manner. “I think my folks have been following the state mandate to the best of their ability,” he commented.

Karen Dugen, secretary to the head of buildings and grounds for Newtown schools, noted that the high school recycles all cardboard and wooden pallets, as well as light tubes and office paper. They are brought to the transfer station by a courier, a long-term temporary employee of the Board of Education.

“We have a full recycling program,” said Jimmy Young, head custodian at Newtown High School. “The custodians pick up plastics and glass nightly and the courier brings them to the transfer station.” Classrooms can also collect paper to be brought via courier to the transfer station, said Mr Young, and the custodians have placed a container in the cafeteria for bottles.

The high school encourages recycling by placing recycling bins at all indoor and outdoor events, said Mr Young, and for the past two years, a local family has taken the waste oil from the high school auto shop to convert into fuel oil.

“We are trying to encourage recycling more,” he said. “We try to put up signs and get the kids to separate recyclables. The problem is kids mixing garbage and recyclables together.”

Once recyclables are mixed into waste, they cannot be separated. According to the Department of Environmental Protection, “…there are no facilities permitted in Connecticut to ‘pick through’ mixed MSW [municipal solid waste] to retrieve designated recyclable material.”

The disparity of the recycling program is evident at Head O’ Meadow Elementary School where head custodian Wayne Sherwood said that every classroom separates plastics and papers and cardboard, delivered to the transfer station weekly by the courier. Often, though, said Mr Sherwood, students toss garbage into the recyclable paper containers and, “Then we have to throw it out.”

‘Where Does Everything Go?”

Jini Woodies has been a teacher at Head O’ Meadow Elementary School since it opened in 1977, and when recycling started many years ago, she said, every teacher had two recycling buckets for paper in the classroom. These days, however, despite the 2006 districtwide third grade science curriculum change last year that includes a section on recycling, she sees little evidence of recycling containers in classrooms. In many, she said, she has seen only one plastic receptacle. “If there is only one trash can, where does everything go?” she asked.

She has always in her own classroom collected plastic bottles and brought them to the faculty room to put in a container there for recyclables. She became concerned this past year when a colleague informed her that everything ends up in black bags in the garbage. In March, she began bringing home recyclables from her classroom, to ensure that they would make it to the transfer station.

She became further concerned this spring when, as part of an HOM Scholarship committee, an interviewee mentioned she was interested in recycling as it did not appear to happen much in schools. “No one seems to have a clear picture of how this recycling is being handled,” said Ms Woodies.

What annoys this teacher is that children are coming to the school prepared by preschool and home lessons to recycle, and are not given the opportunity to participate properly at school. “You have to walk the talk,” she said. “If the Board of Education has approved a curriculum on recycling then we certainly need to set an example. We don’t look at where we want to be in 20 or 30 years.”

Ms Woodies feels so strongly about providing recycling opportunities at Head O’ Meadow that she has requested containers from Arlene Miles, who is a member of the Recycling Task Force for HRRA in Newtown. With principal Bill Bircher’s permission and the cooperation of the custodial crew, she plans to place the containers in as many classrooms or public areas of the school as she can when school reopens the end of August.

“I will be as helpful as I can be at school. I think people rise to the occasion. You could make inroads in classrooms with recycling if the teachers had receptacles,” Ms Woodies said.

Hawley School Principal Jo Ann Peters-Edmondson said that the school does what it can to recycle. The school provides a bin for paper recycling in the office and teachers can deposit paper there from their classrooms. “A courier picks it up when it is full,” she said. Because Hawley School has no cafeteria, the children eat in their classrooms. Having recyclable containers in every room for plastic or glass containers and for papers would not be practical, she said.

The staff room does have a place for teachers to recycle cardboard and tin foil, said Ms Peters-Edmondson and periodically, a staff member will collect plastics and other recyclables and bring them to the local transfer station.

Hawley School is also careful to send flyers, newsletters, and notices from the office to only one child in the family verses multiple copies. This ends up being a huge savings in paper, Ms Peters-Edmondson said. So far as she is aware, there is no policy from the Board of Education concerning recycling in the schools.

All recyclables at Newtown Middle School are picked up regularly by the Board of Education courier for proper disposal, said head custodian Kevin Anzellotti. “It’s routine,” said Mr Anzellotti. Recyclable bags are provided to each classroom for white paper, but it was unclear as to whether recycling containers are regularly placed in the school cafeteria.

“It’s not a perfect system,” admitted Mr Anzellotti, and stressed the importance of students using those receptacles that are provided.

No Formal Policy

Chartwells School Dining Services, which provides food service for the schools in Newtown, does not provide recycling containers in any of the cafeterias. Caroline Nelson, spokesperson for the food service, said that the Newtown school system, to her knowledge, does not have a recycling policy. “Chartwells would follow whatever the school implemented for recycling. We try to be socially responsible,” said Ms Nelson.

Who is responsible for providing adequate recycling containers in every school and what steps need to be taken to ensure that recycling does take place was not clear. As a new administrator, Superintendent Thomas Jokubaitis said that he has not yet had a chance to review recycling in Newtown schools. It has come to his attention that recycling needs to be addressed, he said, and he has asked the principals to provide him with the status of recycling at each school when he meets with them on August 22. “I did go through the schools and I did notice recycling bins in many schools,” said Mr Jokubaitis.

In addition, Mr Jokubaitis has been asked by Board of Education Chairman Elaine McClure to draft a written policy concerning recycling to present to the board at the next Board of Education meeting. The school system does not currently have a written policy on recycling.

“I am also drafting a letter to be sent to each employee of the schools reminding them of the [recycling] law and encouraging their participation in the program,” said the superintendent.

“One of the challenges of schools is that it is more and more difficult to pass local budgets,” said Cheryl Reedy when asked about what makes a good school recycling program. “One of the things cut first [from a budget] is the recycling program. It leads people to make short-term decisions.”

For a recycling program to be successful, the person at the top must be committed to the process and pass that on to employees, said Ms Reedy. “You have to show that the boss cares.”

It would not be unreasonable to double the numbers of trees saved, or of fuel saved, if everyone did just a modest amount of recycling, Ms Reedy said. “This is something people can do every day and know that they are making a difference.”