Philadelphia Weekly: Emerald City
Filed under: Earth 911 - September 25, 2007
The following is an excerpt from the “Waste” section of the article.
Philly is famous for its waste. Famous internationally, in fact. Remember the barge of our incinerator ash we dumped illegally on a Haitian beach back in the ’80s? It took us more than a decade to finally take some responsibility for it. But we still have a waste problem at home.
Philadelphians don’t recycle. It’s just not in our DNA. At least not these days.
Ironically, around the time we hauled our ash to Haiti, Philly was at the forefront of what was then a new recycling movement. Wilson Goode, the mayor now best known for dropping a bomb on his own city, was the first to embrace recycling in Philly—or in any major U.S. city, says Maurice Sampson, Philly’s first recycling coordinator and a current recycling consultant.
Later administrations didn’t share Goode’s enthusiasm. And here we are two decades later, lagging behind almost every other city with a shameful recycling rate of less than 10 percent.
But all that’s gonna change, says Sampson, who’s been working with likely next mayor Michael Nutter on a plan to make the city a recycling leader again. Which is not to say we’ve made no progress over the last few years. The recent move to single-stream recycling gives Sampson some hope. But we’re still a long way from where we should be.
We’ve got a state-of-the-art recycling plant on Grays Ferry Avenue, Sampson says, so we have the capability to recycle about half of our collective waste stream. But the city’s not interested in maximizing that potential, he says, because the current administration thinks it’s too expensive.
The good news is Nutter doesn’t. “I’m optimistic,” says Sampson of our next mayor’s commitment to recycling.
Meantime, what, when and how to recycle remains a mystery to many Philadelphians, despite the city’s flashy new mailings attempting to answer these very questions. Since the way recycling is done still varies by neighborhood and sometimes even by block—and the city isn’t yet accepting plastic or cardboard—you might be better off hauling your recyclables to a neighborhood pickup spot.
This way, you can help out a deserving organization (which most likely gets paid for the recyclables it turns in) while helping save the environment. For a full list of where in your community you can dispose of everything from electronics to automotive fluids to fluorescent bulbs (as well as all seven different types of plastic bottles), go to earth911.org.
Or, if you’re a DIY type, you can take the saving-the-earth thing one step further by composting your kitchen and yard waste. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) offers ample resources for giving new life to your old garbage. You don’t need a yard or any special equipment to compost, says PHS’ Laura Beitman. All you need is a trash can with holes punched in the bottom, set inside another one with a lid. Compostable items include fruits and vegetables, coffee grounds, grass and leaves (but no animal products, cooked foods or oils).
Beitman says, “The ratio of brown materials to green should be 30 parts of brown (carbon-rich) materials, to one part green (nitrogen-rich) materials. Browns include leaves, straw, wood chips and small twigs. Greens include grass and kitchen scraps.”
The keys to good composting, Beitman says, are air (“turn the pile once a day and let it breathe”), temperature (try to keep it between 90 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit) and moisture (40 to 60 percent moisture content is ideal). For more information, call PHS’ “Ask a Gardener” hotline at 215.988.8777 or go to www.pennsylvaniahorticulturalsociety.org. (S.K.)