Go ahead. Drop that yogurt container into the recycling bucket. You know you want to. The City of Philadelphia has made recycling far more worthwhile with the Recycling Rewards Program. If a vague sense of helping the environment doesn't pull you in, discounts at local businesses will. In an effort to increase residents' compliance with the recycling program, Philadelphia has partnered with RecycleBank to create the Rewards Program, which is now available to residents citywide. But there are questions. Christine Knapp of the local office of the state's leading environmental advocacy organization, PennFuture, says every time she talks to communities about the city's recycling program, someone asks about yet another item. Yes, says Knapp, all plastics with numbers 1-7 are now eligible. But not plastic bags. "They jam up the sorting system."
So many questions coupled with so little compliance: only 18 percent of all Philly's trash is diverted into recycling. Colleen Meehan is a program organizer for Clean Water Action of Pennsylvania, one of the groups involved with RecycleNOW Philadelphia, a coalition of individuals and organizations working to promote recycling. She says one of the barriers is that the Recycling Rewards Program is primarily online. Additionally, the program can be somewhat confusing. What is eligible for recycling, and how does a whole neighborhood benefit from the used soda cans of an individual household? The way the program is structured, an entire community shares in the benefits of individual families' recycling efforts. Each family gets its own rewards, which can be any of thousands of options, from supermarket discounts to minor league baseball tickets.
RecycleNOW hopes a series of four community activist workshops will spark interest in the program that was originally piloted in West Oak Lane and Chestnut Hill before citywide rollout. The gatherings are billed as training sessions for those who want to spread the good word in their communities, but, says Knapp, anyone with questions about the process can attend. Experts will answer commonly asked questions, and provide information and materials residents need to help sign up others in their communities. The first session is scheduled for this evening at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Center City. Workshops will follow in South Philadelphia, the near northeast, including Kensington, Fishtown and Northern Liberties, and the greater northeast.
Source: Christine Knapp, PennFuture; Colleen Meehan, Clean Water Action
Writer: Sue Spolan