City's curbside recycling participation 'remarkable'

Transcript Staff Writer

About half of Norman's residents have participated in curbside recycling since the program debuted March 3, significantly higher than most cities that have curbside recycling programs.

"This is very, very remarkable," said Utilities Director Ken Komiske to Norman city councilmembers at their Tuesday meeting. "Even our contractor is amazed at the amount of participation. ... This is something as a city that we should be very proud of."

Komiske said most cities have about 25 to 35 percent participation, compared to Norman's 50 percent. Participation is counted by figuring the percentage of residents putting their green recycling bins out some time during the month.

"We hope it stays this way and gets even better," Komiske said. "It's been very successful."

He said about 14 tons of recycled materials are picked up daily, with 293 tons collected for the month of March. About 199 tons of newspaper and mixed paper were collected, with 93.5 tons of containers like plastic, steel, glass and aluminum.

The curbside recycled materials do not have to be sorted, he said.

The amount collected breaks down into 163 tons of newspaper, 40 tons of plastic, 36 tons of mixed paper, 35 tons of glass, 14 tons of steel and tin cans and 5 tons of aluminum.

Items recycled curbside include newspapers, junk mail, phone books, mixed office paper, steel and tin cans, clean food jars and colored bottles, No. 1 and 2 plastics and aluminum cans.

"(Recycling) is anything you can keep out of the landfill and use again," Komiske said.

Directions on how to recycle are available at the Citizens Organized to Recycle our Environment at www.recyclenorman.com or the City of Norman's Web site at www.NormanOK.gov.

Komiske said the City's three recycling centers will stay open and accept all the same materials and cardboard, which is not picked up curbside. About half of the materials recycled at the centers is cardboard.

He said recycling at the centers kept about 2,500 tons out of the landfill in 2007. The compost center received another about 9,500 tons of yard waste.

For fiscal year 2007, recycling at the centers was broken down to 1,088 tons of cardboard, 742 tons of newspaper, 290 tons of glass, 191 of mixed paper, 157 of plastic, 39 of steel and 19 of aluminum.

The centers will remain open at Hollywood Shopping Center at Lindsey Street and McGee Drive, the far northwest corner of the Hobby Lobby parking lot at Main Street and 24th Avenue NW and the Griffin Community Park at 12th Avenue NE, just north of Robinson Street. The Griffin location soon will be moved to the Cleveland County Fairgrounds at 615 E. Robinson St.

Councilmembers urged Komiske and city staff to continue to try to find dropoff locations to serve the southeastern and northwestern portions of Norman.

The City of Norman has taken about 90,000 tons of waste per year to the landfill since 2000.

"Even though our city has been growing, it's kept pretty constant," Komiske said, thanks to efforts by citizens to recycle and the city's yard waste program. "Which means we're watching what we're throwing away better."

The referendum for curbside recycling passed by a 72 percent approval rate May 8. Citizens voted to assess each urban household a $3 per month fee to pay for the curbside recycling.

There will be a household hazardous waste collection day May 3 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Lloyd Noble Center's southwest parking lot.

For more information, call the City of Norman's sanitation department at 329-1023.

Carol Cole-Frowe 366-3538 ccole@normantranscript.com