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An Idea about Alley Recycling in the City of St Louis

1.This is Michael Maher, a resident in Shaw, just doing this as a private citizen. If there is significant response, I plan to send the results of this survey on to city elected officials. Recycling and yard waste pickup is temporarily suspended in the City of St Louis, and it looks like there is a danger of alley recycling not coming back. I have an idea, and I would like to see what others think.

For each block alley, have one extra-large blue bin (recycling) and one extra-large green bin (yard waste). Each of them would have something like a latch, making opening them require one more step. Next to them would be a brown bin (regular trash), and there would be multiple brown bins on each block.

How often the blue and green bins get picked up would be determined by a 4-week study to see how quickly they fill up each week based on neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that fill their blue and green bins quickly would get picked up more often than neighborhoods that don't fill theirs very quickly.

The problem, as described by the city, is that the blue and green bins often become "contaminated" by regular trash because some people who don't recycle just put their bags of trash in the closest bin, regardless of color. Also, some neighborhoods don't use their blue and green bins as much because of lower population density. This would reduce those problems because people would throw their regular trash in a brown bin that's easier to open and right there. It would reduce the number of trucks and drivers used because there would be far fewer bins to collect, especially where they are not being used as often.

What do you think of this idea?(Required.)
2.Do you have a comment?
3.Name (or initials or whatever you prefer)
4.In what zip code do you live (or work or study)?(Required.)