“I wasn’t recycling prior to the wheeled cart system. The bins held my Halloween items,” wrote Tara Cuney in response to a request on The Journal Gazette’s Facebook page asking to hear from readers who, for whatever reason, did not recycle before the city updated its recycling system.

Cuney, 42, is a busy mother of two living in the Aboite Lakes Estates neighborhood. She would collect her family’s pop cans and turn them in for cash, but didn’t want to bother with the brown and yellow bins the city provided for recycling.

“For me, the bins filled up in one week. So I just stopped. The main reason, I didn’t like carrying them to the curb. I guess it seemed like it wasn’t worth it,” she said. “And now it’s so much easier!”

She said she easily cut the amount of garbage she throws away each week in half. Her only complaint about the city’s six-month-old recycling program is that her recycling cart is always full. “I almost wish they would do it every week.”

Cuney’s renewed commitment to recycling and her rave reviews of the city’s revamped recycling program are echoed by other residents. More importantly, the overwhelming success of the updated program is backed up by an impressive increase in recycling and savings for city customers.

The new recycling process allows people simply to throw all of their recycling in one cart rather than separating it into two bins. The wheeled carts make it much easier to get the goods to the curb for pick-up.

The city’s seven-year contract with National Serv-All significantly expanded the types of plastic that could be recycled.

Fortunately, the city also negotiated a revenue-sharing agreement into its contract so that the more city residents recycle, the more the city benefits.

Unqualified success

“I see more yellow-lidded bins out in the neighborhood than I ever did those tubs,” said Carol Elrod, president of the Anthony Wayne Neighborhood Association.

She said the new program has caused a dramatic increase in recycling in her southeast-side neighborhood.

The new program allowed Elrod, who celebrated her 76th birthday on Monday, to recycle. “I didn’t recycle at all before,” she said. “I wasn’t going to try and struggle to get those bins to the street. They were too awkward to carry.”

She said her neighborhood is also neater because the lids prevent papers, cans and other items left for recycling from blowing all over the neighborhood as happened with the bins. “It’s handy, less trouble and neater.”

The increase in recycling is happening all over the city. Last year, 34 percent of city residents participated in the city’s recycling program. When the new recycling program was launched, Mayor Tom Henry set a goal of increasing participation to 65 percent. The city has surpassed that with 68 percent of residents dutifully wheeling their recycling to the curb every other week.

The amount recycled before was shamefully less than 10 percent of the total solid waste.

Residents recycled fewer than 800 tons per month before the carts. It has increased to more than 1,100 tons each month.

More people are participating, and they are recycling a larger portion of their refuse.

Residents sent 95,000 tons of trash to the landfill in 2010. This year, city officials expect to send fewer than 90,000 tons.

Henry announced on Wednesday that the revenue-sharing component of the city’ recycling contract will allow the city to reduce residents’ garbage fees for the second time in less than a year.

In January the city cut 24 cents off customers’ bills. The Henry administration proposed cutting the $11 monthly garbage fee by $1.05 as of Sept. 1. The proposal will go to Fort Wayne City Council for approval on Aug. 9.

That fee reduction is thanks to an impressive increase in recycling participation, but every homeowner – even those who don’t bother to recycle – will reap the benefits of a lower solid waste bill.

Debt reduction

“We’re getting new cart requests every day,” said Matt Gratz, city solid waste manager.

The city’s 311 call center receives an average of 20 requests each day for recycling carts. Gratz said another frequent request is exchanging the smaller 48-gallon cart for the larger 96-gallon recycling carts. He has received about 560 requests for larger carts.

As of Wednesday, the city had delivered 53,614 recycling carts total.

To keep neighborhoods tidier and make trash collection more efficient, the city invested in a 10-year lease of garbage carts with lids in 2006. In 2011, the city invested an additional $2.7 million for single-stream recycling carts.

“Not only did we reduce fees by $1 million, but we are also going to reduce our debt by about $1.6 million,” said Frank Suarez, city spokesman.The recycling revenue and lower garbage costs will also allow the city to pay off the garbage carts lease early.

“By paying down that debt this year, it’s going to decrease the city’s solid waste budget by $435,000 each year,” said Bob Kennedy, director of public works.

Recycling payoff

Currently, National Serv-All processes the city’s recycling at a leased facility on New Haven Avenue. But in October 2010, the company bought the facility at 2509 E. Pontiac St. that was owned by Summit Recycling Transfer LLC. National Serv-All is expanding the building to allow access for more trucks and installing new equipment specifically designed to handle single-stream recycling. It’s scheduled to open in September.

The price of recycling commodities fluctuates daily. On Tuesday a “clean load” of cardboard was worth $145 a ton. But the value of glass is down, and National Serv-All has to work to find a profitable market for it. Because glass is heavy and costly to transport, National Serv-All sometimes ends up paying to get rid of it.

“Our challenge under the new program is getting as much glass out as possible so it doesn’t contaminate the paper,” said Joe Suleyman, operations manager for National Serv-All.

The new equipment uses friction and density to remove and sort paper by its grade as well as removing glass and other contaminants to get the highest grade commodity – and more profit for the company and the city.

National Serv-All is also getting 30 new trucks this year to service the city’s account. And it will be adding decals to the trucks so the public can differentiate between the recycling and trash trucks. “Right now, they look the same,” Suleyman said.

The new recycling facility and trucks will ensure the city’s contractor can efficiently handle increased recycling from the city.

“We are going to be above 12,000 tons this year,” Kennedy said. The city recycled only 8,800 tons in 2010. He said the city estimated that the recycling revenue-sharing agreement would bring in $250,000 in 2011, but it’s brought in $234,000 in just the first six months. It will bring in about $500,000 this year.

The success of the recycling program has led to an unprecedented reduction in user fees and allowed the city to cut its debt. Increased recycling will increase the payoff. Finally, residents are experiencing the benefits of being green in the most persuasive manner possible – more money in their wallets.