[EQAB-list] rebuttal to opponents of RecycleRewards

[Robert G Kennedy III, PE]

Dear Colleagues,

I've been getting some pushback regarding Recyling Rewards from some  
of my neighbors in the West End on our neighborhood listserver. One of  
them sent a letter to City Council. Basically they do not want to  
spend any more money. Obviously I don't agree. This is my response,  
sent last nite:

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a rebuttal to the opponents of single-stream-recycling-with-rewards

Dear neighbors,

It is commendable that many of us recycle for ethical reasons, and  
until 30 September, would go so far as to haul our waste cardboard and  
paper to the "convenience center" all by ourselves. Virtue, indeed, is  
its own reward.

However (three things in rebuttal):

Thing #1: Virtue alone takes you only so far. The +70% spike in  
recyled material after October 1 which Gary Cinder mentioned to my  
neighbor Don Hurtubise is nice, but experience in 40 other cities  
around the country shows that we can increase the recycling stream by  
+200%, almost 3 times as much as the +70% Don cites. A +200%  
improvement over the current system means about +3000 tons more stuff  
per year that doesn't get wasted in the Anderson County landfill, but  
gets converted to a useful purpose. That's about 40,000 tons over the  
13-year (?) life of the contract, roughly the same as a small  
battleship. That 40,000 tons of recyclable material has about 20,000  
tons of embedded energy in it, too, in the form of oil or coal, plus  
hundreds of thousands of tons of water which was used to make all  
those materials in the first place. It is the personal reward,  
complemented with an efficient automated collection system that makes  
the extra 40,000 tons of avoided waste possible.

Thing #2: Some people need a little extra incentive to be green, and  
there's nothing wrong with that. It is no worse to pay people for  
recycling stuff (undeniably a social good) than it is to pay people a  
salary for going to work (another social good). /"By the sweat of your  
brow shall you earn your daily bread..."/ Also, if giving valuable  
consideration in exchange for recycling were improper, why do so many  
states have deposits on containers?

Thing #3: Also all people like to play little games with themselves  
and earn little prizes. That's why car designers now put real-time  
miles-per-gallon indicators on the dashboards of new cars, for  
instance. Motorists, being human, like to see how high they can get  
that number, and very quickly adjust their driving style. Look up the  
phenomenon of "hypermilers" sometime. I myself managed to get 41.8 mpg  
out of a vanilla Ford Focus sedan (*not* even a hybrid) on a long trip  
to New England and back last year, and I wasn't dawdling. Without  
feedback, you probably wouldn't change. As a registered professional  
engineer, I tell you that real-time feedback is essential to the  
success of any behavior modification. The RFID chip and the Recycle  
Bank website make that possible.

So I would decouple hifalutin virtue from the equation and rely on  
enlightened self-interest plus technology. This isn't church we're  
talking about, it's garbage, and the economics of green behavior.

Before I go into other rebuttals, a few words about how the system works:

Up until October 1, a man drove a big truck up, stopped at your house,  
got out with the engine running, sorted the bin of a select few  
recyclables by hand, then drove off. It took 30 seconds to 2 minutes,  
depending on the size of the load and how often he had to drive back  
to the central facility. (This operation cost about $90/hour.)

After October 1, a man drives up, gets out with the engine running,  
dumps the whole bin with a lot more variety into the truck, and drives  
off. Or they use satellite pickup trucks feeding a "mother" truck.  
This takes 20-30 seconds.

About March 1 or so next year, a man will drive up and halt briefly. A  
robot arm will come out of the new truck, pick up the new rolling bin,  
read the RFID chip, weigh it (full), lift and dump it in the truck,  
weigh it again (empty), credit your online recycle account at 25 cents  
per pound, and drive off. 10 seconds, tops.

It is the automation and systems integration which make this new  
method cheaper and more productive. But it requires capital: new  
trucks w/robo-arms and electronics, new software, and 12,000 new  
rolling bins. This is what the $2/month pays for. This in turn holds  
down cost increases that would otherwise occur, greatly expands the  
volume of recycled material, and enables you the homeowner to be  
efficiently rewarded for participating in the program. Any other  
mechanism is too cumbersome or takes too much of your own time and  
your own gasoline.

Other Rebuttals
---------------

"Recycling Rewards costs more."
No, it doesn't. In real, constant dollars, there is no cost increase.  
The relative CPI from 1998 to now is about 1.35, so $5 in 1998 equals  
about $7 now. If the City had been ratcheting the rates by a couple of  
dimes per month per year, you wouldn't have noticed anything now.

Plus, your trash pickup is already half-subsidized by the City. Over  
in Knoxville, folks pay $10 or more per month for the very same or  
lesser service that you enjoy here.

Putting things in perspective, $24 is about 3-4 movie tickets, or  
lunch/dinner for two, without alcohol.

Compare this to how much your utilities went up since last year, and  
they don't give you money back (unless you have solar power on your  
roof).

*

"Recycling Rewards costs Oak Ridgers a lot of money, and times are hard."
Yes, times are harder, but no, the program does not cost you money, it  
*makes* you money. *Ten times* as much money. A quarter-mill out,  
two-and-a-half-mill back in your pockets. If times are hard, that  
should be good, right?

As I've already shown in my economic model, the benefit:cost ratio of  
Recycling Rewards to the average household is 10:1. You pay $2 per  
month more for the program, but you get back $20 per month back in  
useful rewards, without doing anything different than you are already  
doing. If you apply yourself, you can bump that to $45 per month,  
which is the program maximum. Part of the reason for the reward cap is  
to remove incentives for stealing recyclables, not that I have ever  
seen that done here. There are other internal disincentives to  
cheating and bad behavior.

What you do with the coupons is up to you. I cannot force you to  
redeem coupons, but likewise, you should not veto others from earning  
them.

*

"The benefits of Recycling Rewards are useless."
In other parts of the country, RecycleBank has signed up regular  
stores like HomeDepot, Krogers, and Walgreens, where people buy  
regular stuff they need on a regular basis. I presume that will happen  
here too, since the perception of value by consumers is critical to  
the success of the program. The program's representatives have said  
so. If Recycle Bank doesn't sign up appropriate useful merchants for  
example grocery/drug/hardware stores, or otherwise fails to meet its  
goals, the City has an escape clause in the contract.

*

"The current recycling bins/program work just fine."
No, they don't. The existing bins are too small for the job, unwieldy,  
and cause ugly messes.

The present 18-gallon bins aren't big enough, even at current  
recycling rates. Most of them are cracked now, and will cost you $12  
each to replace. As of October 1, virtually every single house in the  
neighborhood has been utilizing additional field-expedient containers  
such as cardboard boxes or plastic bags which look ugly. Furthermore,  
virtually every resident in the neighborhood has had to pick up  
newspapers or other light stuff which blew out of their own or a  
neighbor's bin. Not to mention varmints constantly pawing thru the  
recyclables prospecting for goodies. Finally, there's the privacy  
aspect - I'd prefer that all the neighborhood joggers didn't know how  
cheap my potent potables (as Alex Trebec would say) are.

A 65-gallon bin sounds like a lot, but is the same size as 4 milk jugs  
wide, by 4 jugs across, by 4 jugs high. (4x4x4 = 64.) 4 milk jugs in  
one dimension isn't that much. The average lot size in Oak Hills  
Estates is 1 acre - the footprint of 4x4 milk jugs is about 1/10,000th  
of your property, hardly worth worrying about.

A wheeled container of almost any size is way easier to manage than a  
non-rolling bin of any kind, and can be steered and pulled with one  
hand. Try handling a full non-rolling bin that way. Also, the waste  
hauler is already required by contract to provide "back door service"  
to residents who have trouble getting around.

The wheeled container is easier for the trash hauler to handle, too,  
and much faster. 10 seconds for the robot arm to pick up the bin,  
weigh it, dump it, weigh it again, credit your account, and move on.  
Versus 1-2 minutes with the old method. This reduces cost. These  
operational savings, in combination with the money which the waste  
processors are making with the recycle program, have allowed them to  
sign a longer-term fixed-price contract with the City, holding the  
santitation cost down more than would otherwise be the case. This is  
possible because a valuable commodity which was formerly wasted is now  
being monetized, resulting in benefits to all parties, and the  
environment.

*

Now,
you all have personally observed electricity go up +20% in just one  
month here, to over 11 cents per kWh, as of October 1. It was 6 cents  
only a few years ago.
FYI, it went up +30% (!) in northern Alabama (also part of TVA-land).
This was on top of several +10% fuel surcharges last year.
You also saw your water go up +40% just last year, from $3.68 to over  
$5 for a unit (100 cubic feet? 1000 gals? Not sure.)
Finally, after a long climb all year, you saw gasoline spike +60% two  
months ago, then drop -60% in the last month.
Not to mention food prices, driven by corn ethanol.
This is called "price volatility", and it has generally harmful  
economic effects.
The stable prices you used to take for granted aren't so anymore.
The basic commodities you need to live can go up ten times faster than  
the so-called CPI.
So you can see that price *predictability* has a positive value all by itself.
Wouldn't it be nice to get something you need at a price you can rely  
on for many years?
Wouldn't it be even better if that price were also low?

With the new single-stream-recycling-rewards, everybody does the right  
thing, and everybody does well in the bargain.


-- 
Robert G Kennedy III, PE
www.ultimax.com


PS. Green energy is my field these days. Over the past 11 months, I  
have spoken to numerous community groups about what I'm doing in green  
energy, and what the City is doing for green policy. It occurs to me  
that it might be useful to talk to you my neighbors as well. I'm sorta  
reluctant to host an event at my house since my giant landscaping  
project looks like the aftermath of a B-52 strike. But if I can find a  
venue, I'd be happy to share with you-all what I'm doing.

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