Should Atlanta pitch its recycling program?

First off, let me say that I think recycling is a good thing. When I lived in an apartment, I separated my trash and took glass, aluminum and newspaper to the local recycling facility. I currently dispose of my organic kitchen waste in a backyard compost pile. In short, recycling is the responsibility of environmentally conscious citizens, not government agencies or contractors.I'm not too demanding when it comes to the handling of my garbage. Yet for the past 14 months, Dreamsan Inc. (the College Park firm that holds the city's recycling contract) has me feeling down in the dumps. On numerous occasions, my weekly pick-up was either missed or ignored ("Oops, that must be a new driver," is the common response to my queries). On the occasion that a pick-up is successfully accomplished, more often than not, cat food cans, plastic soda bottles and other miscellaneous items are left in the street or in the recycling bin.

Despite weekly calls, it took almost seven weeks for Dreamsan to deliver a recycling bin to my current home in Grant Park (only a call to Councilwoman Carla Smith's office got the bin delivered). It's not uncommon for the folks in my neighborhood to have their recyclable refuse sit uncollected -- often for two weeks or more -- in our tiny subdivision.

Dreamsan's learning curve notwithstanding, the true wastefulness of Atlanta's recycling program lies in the fact that it's not mandatory. While approximately half of the city's residents choose to separate their trash for recycling, the rest do not. This includes bars, restaurants and other businesses, as well as apartment dwellers. So, despite good intentions, about 30,000 tons of glass, plastic, metal and newspaper end up in landfills every year, according to the city's recycling department.

Millions of dollars are taken from Atlantans each year as part of the annual sanitation tax, yet better than half the recyclable trash produced by the city is wasted. All of which begs the question: If a city has a recycling program that isn't used by all of its citizens, does a city really have a recycling program?

Public apathy, mismanagement or incompetence -- it doesn't really matter to me. If Atlanta can operate an efficient, comprehensive recycling program, I'm all for it. But until I see evidence to suggest otherwise, I'll continue to believe that our current curbside recycling program is an exercise in eco-masturbation.

Chris Renaldo believes that "separate, but equal" is OK for trash.