Ann Arborites tend to think of their city as a model example for recycling, and that holds true for single-family homes. But commercial recycling has some catching up to do.
The city estimates that 80 to 85 percent of Ann Arbor's single-family homes recycle. And according to its
2013-2017 solid waste plan those homes have a diversion rate hovering around 50 percent–meaning that about half of all waste materials are diverted from the landfill. But as recently as 2008, a study by the city's environmental commission found that Ann Arbor businesses had a diversion rate of only 10 to 14 percent. Outgoing city councilperson Margie Teall, who worked on that 2008 report, says "changing the culture of waste diversion in business is just a tougher task."
"I think it's easier for families to divert their recycling, perhaps," Teall says. "I think there's more of a culture of recycling within the city of Ann Arbor amongst residents that value that highly. And a lot of businesses have employees or management who live outside the city. I think that's part of it."
Ezra Graziano, general manager of the Ann Arbor Hiller's Market, says a variety of factors may hold businesses back from recycling.
"It is a matter of cost, as far as materials," Graziano says. "Space is a large issue within the store, and making room for services that aren't necessarily increasing profits is a challenge. So to accommodate those areas is something that I don't think a lot of businesses are willing to do."
However, Graziano and the market he manages are part of a larger positive trend in Ann Arbor's commercial recycling scenario. Upon taking the manager position at Hiller's Ann Arbor location, Graziano took the initiative to reach out to
Recycle Ann Arbor (RAA), the nonprofit contracted by the city to provide recycling service. RAA happened to be in the midst of a major outreach campaign to get more businesses recycling, signing up 90 new businesses from July through December last year. RAA outreach and zero waste coordinator Christine Chessler-Stull spearheaded that effort.
"A lot of the businesses weren't trying to fly under the radar by any means," Chessler-Stull says. "You legitimately felt for these people because you would meet them and…they did want to recycle and they just didn't know how."
Many businesses also didn't realize that they were legally required to recycle. RAA's outreach campaign aimed to bring more businesses into compliance with a 2009 city ordinance making recycling mandatory for all commercial locations. Up until 2011, the mandate was supposed to be implemented by a "progressive enforcement program based on non-financial penalty." Businesses who didn't comply by July 2012 were then to be fined $200 for a first offense, $400 for a second and $1,000 for each additional offense.
However, that timeline has been set back by a couple years. Chessler-Stull says that although the ordinance is on the books, "it's just not being enforced, unfortunately."
"It is my understanding that since this ordinance went into effect in 2009, nobody has ever been fined for not complying, because they also haven't gotten everybody on board yet," she says. "They haven't had the manpower to sign up every single business yet."
Judging by the standards set in Seattle, considered one of the most robust recycling programs in the nation, Ann Arbor's timeline for rolling out its business recycling mandate may have been a bit overambitious.
Hans Van Dusen, Seattle's solid waste contracts manager, says 90 to 95 percent of Seattle businesses recycle and the commercial sector has a 63 percent diversion rate. Van Dusen says laws barring paper and beverage containers in commercial garbage have been a major factor in high compliance among businesses (businesses are fined $50 on their third strike if such materials are found in the trash). But the introduction of those laws (and a new one prohibiting food waste in the trash, which will take effect next year) was just the end of a very long game that began around 1990.
"After about 15 years of heavy voluntary outreach-type support, voluntary efforts, then we went to the requirement," Van Dusen says. "That was kind of another boost. Then we came in with the voluntary food waste and beverage containers, and then we've added those as a requirement. So it's kind of taken an iterative step of going from voluntary efforts to requirement."
So where does this leave the state of Ann Arbor's commercial recycling? No one really knows. The city's recycling data doesn't distinguish between businesses and multi-family homes, although the total citywide diversion rate was most recently recorded at 31 percent, significantly lower than that for single-family dwellings. Although the city counts 2,500 recycling carts at businesses and multi-family homes, that still doesn't indicate a hard number of participants because buildings often share recycling carts and Dumpsters.
"That's an area where we're lacking data," says city communications specialist Robert Kellar. "And it's something we're looking to improve upon because what we need to find out is which businesses are recycling. Right now it's a free program and we have no intention of changing it, but we don't have a registry, for example. We don't have a collection of names of businesses that are recycling. We just know where the Dumpster locations are, or the cart locations are."
Nonetheless, Kellar says the city feels confident that it has achieved the solid waste plan's goal of having all businesses recycling by the end of this year, with the exception of a "small number" who may not know about the city's recycling program. The city and RAA are now beginning to turn their attention towards an initiative to boost recycling in multi-family units, which Kellar describes as "a significant deficiency which we've recognized and definitely need to improve on."
However, Teall says it's time for Ann Arbor to start branching out with some new recycling ideas in all sectors. With the exception of the solid waste plan, she says recycling isn't an issue that's been "on the front burner" for the city. Teall suggests following in Seattle's footsteps and offering year-round composting and waste oil recycling for businesses.
"I don't think we're near the forefront anymore," she says. "I think we started out that way, certainly. I think Recycle Ann Arbor was historically just on the cutting edge of that effort decades ago. Certainly the city has picked up on that, and the city is on par with where I think most cities are. But there are things that I know that are going on in other cities that we should be jumping on right now."
AnchorThe city has taken some smaller steps towards the programs Teall proposes. Cooking oil is accepted at RAA's dropoff station, and food waste composting was first offered this spring for residential locations during the months of April through December. Kellar says something like the compost program still needs a longer data-gathering period before it could be upgraded again, but Ann Arbor's recycling future remains full of possibilities.
"We're certainly open to expanding a program if it's economically feasible," he says. "And if that does some good–hey, we're open to all new ideas."
Patrick Dunn is an Ann Arbor-based freelance writer and lead writer for Metromode and Concentrate.
All photos by Doug Coombe
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