More than muffins

Meanwhile, in far-off New Haven
    By Ben Smith

I'm fairly fond of worms, so I regard the 1,000 red wigglers who live in the recycling bin under my kitchen sink as something of a benefit. The worms are an incentive for me to recycle food waste, not an obstacle. Yale Recycling offers its own incentives: muffins for academic departments that recycle their office paper, $100 and some pizza for the Green Cup-winning residential college.

I understand that not everyone loves worms. Most people don't really care that much about muffins, pizza, or a shared $100 either. And, unfortunately, most people have trouble getting excited about collective benefits, whether for their residential college or the planet. Everyone, on the other hand, hates carting sticky beer bottles across the courtyard to smelly bins, and most people prefer trashing their food waste to painstaking worm-feeding. Nevertheless, Yale and New Haven recycling departments continue to rely on good will, weak incentives, and trickle-down law enforcement to assure compliance with the laws that mandate the recycling of most cans, bottles, and paper.

The economics of recycling suggest an attractive alternative to pizza, muffins, and the charm of red worms: dollars. Recycling saves institutions money; the more we recycle, the more efficient it becomes, and the more Yale saves. While the University pays about $80 to get rid of a ton of trash, a ton of recyclables costs the school $40, according to C.J. May, head of Yale Recycling. Recyclers recoup some labor and equipment costs, for example, by selling wastepaper to shoebox manufacturers. Even from rough figures, the potential savings from increased recycling are substantial: May told me that Yale recycles only about 16 percent of its trash, while some schools recycle as much as 50 percent. As for food waste, he estimated that the dining halls toss about a ton of potential compost each day, in spite of the efforts of a few valiant worm farmers.

New Haven is in a similar situation, except without muffins. Heather Gilbert, the city's Environmental Educator, explained that the city pushes its ambitious, expanding program with threats directed at trash collection companies and educational mailings, which have little effect on residents.

In New Haven, as at Yale, individuals have no incentive to recycle. In fact, the savings from our bottles go toward the budget of Yale Recycling, and C.J. May is probably the only person here who doesn't need added incentive to recycle. The incentive would be better placed with the people who produce the trash themselves, and on as personal a level as possible. A few people will recycle responsibly for the good of the residential college, University, city, or planet. Everbody will perform good deeds for cash.

Based on this rather pessimistic principle, some cities have instituted the "pay as you throw" system, known formally as Quantity-Based User Fees (QBUF). Under QBUF, the trash collector weighs your trash, or counts the bags, and charges you accordingly. Recycled materials either don't count toward that total, or cost significantly less, reflecting the institution's real savings.

May told me that Yale has also considered QBUF, but that it's just "not feasible." He cites the practical problems of figuring out who is responsible for which garbage and the fact that students pay flat housing fees, which include trash collection. So for now, May is sticking to Pavlovian conditioning: "When people think about recycling, they think about muffins."

Having lived in a residential college, I think we could get over the difficulties associated with a program like QBUF. Students who generate very little trash could be handed cash at the end of the semester; maybe those with too many pounds of trash could be fined. In fact, suites within the residential colleges are perfect for placing this kind of responsibility--it's harder for one person in four to be irresponsible than for one person in 400. We shouldn't be surprised at how excited people get over a little money.

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