Where I live, its a 2 family house, butthere its a family i'm the attic & basement, and they look at the mail boxes to decide how many to give, well its not enough black ones...and they are too small...I live second floor & family on first floor are sharing cus the attic & basement are sharing...we are recycling (great idea) but others seem not to pay attention to what is to go in the blue ones....plus of we need more black ones where can we get it...

Think about it,we Have a lot of trash not so much cans and bottles BUT TRASH.CHANGE IT around make the big blue one for trash and the small black one for plastic and cans ect.Its that easy!!!!!!!!!!

If you read the City's informational brochure about recycling, you will realize that most items people think are trash are actually recycable: Paper, cardboard, newspapers, many kinds of plastics, and the list goes on. It's so much more than cans and bottles these days. The only trash should be food related garbage, everything else can be recycled. So get educated! Fill the big blue with recycling and fill the small brown with garbage!

Joker wants to cling to the old ways when he doesn't realize that those ways will be the end of Gotham City as we know it. Oh wait..that's what he wants.

Thanks, Green Neighbor. A big reason for recycling is because the city pays to get rid of trash--but gets PAID for recyclables. So if everyone gets with the program, the city at least would break even with weekly trash pick-up.

The new recycling bins are a great idea,but if anyone thinks the Mayor will lower taxes becouse the city will profit from this ,don,t hold your breath. Anything left over in the city,s coufer will never get in hte hands of honest employeed tax payers

Not all of us have a lot of trash. So on behalf of us who have more recyclables than trash, leave things just the way they are.

I don't expect that it will lower taxes but if it help environment we need to do this . It help save the earth it is good . Ever ylittle thing we do helps earth be a better place since man seems to be the one to destroy it in the first place. We recycle more then we throw out and that is the way it should be. Why is people always looking for something in return look what you can do for our earth even if it is a small act.

Well I feel as if Im the bad guy ha ha,GOTHEM will always be GOTHEM.TRASH cans, bottles,EVIL doers would fit in the larger BLUE ONES GET IT MORE TRASH LESS SCRAP!so 1 lb of food leftovers in a 70 lb container ?And thenGOTHHAVEN! the over run of trash bags will overtake our fair part of

IF you thinK about it MOST trash is FOOD,paper,plastic,THATS the make up of a trash cans and cardboard,A few cans SO JUST take the cans out and put them in the BIG BLUE one.Yea thats what I will do and wait for the trash people to think its enough to dump!

THE SYSTEM!

YEA FINE PEOPLE FOR PUTTING THE wrong stuff in the trash.WHO do you have to look in the can to make the charge?OH yea more jobs! good idea!

I think the most aggressive way to enforce would be easy.

First, dont pick it up if its not in the right container and STOP paying the garbage men to look in every recycle container. Warning stickers on cans could be a much easier and less costly.

Second, dont pick it up if its multiple bags outside of the can on the ground especially with no big blue can anywhere to be seen. ONLY pick up what fits inside the brown.

Its time to stop coddling the ignorant, its gone on way too long.

oh yeah-

third- didnt the mayor say the new brown cans would get weighed and people would eventually pay by the pound? when exactly is that going to happen? I see new trucks, I see new bins...

Actually, I recall that the RECYCLING toters would be weighed, and residents would be rewarded for the amount they recycled. On my street we had a one week trial run: public works crews emptied all toters, even if blue ones had garbage/trash instead of recyclables. This past week they only emptied blue toters if they had recyclables. So now there are garbage-filled blue toters sitting on the curb since Tuesday, with birds, cats, etc. strewing it all over the place. Great planning, John Prokop [= director of Public Works Dept., (203) 946-7700 (Office hours: 7:00 am - 3:00 pm M-F) jprokop@newhavenct.net ]
Director of Public Works John Prokop and Christine Tang who is the head of the Office of Sustainability (recycling) will be attending the next Hill South Management Team meeting Jan. 18th, 2012 at 6:00 PM at the Hill South Police Substation, 410 Howard Ave. They will be addressing any concerns residents [taxpayers/voters] have about the recycling program--such as everything that's been posted here in SeeClickFix.

The entire situation is a joke...take two one family homes...both receive only one small brown garbage can. One family has 3 children - with two under the age of 2 vs. the other household that has two adults. Obviously the home with the children is going to have more trash...and should they be fined if their garbage can weighs to much?! I hardly think that is fair. Everybody's situation is different! To me, that is what is going to lead to trash all over the street, dumping of garbage, and overstuffed city garbage cans on corners and in parks.

Taxes for people with no children already go towards other peoples children, should they pay for their garbage too? NO!

And Chris, I believe you are wrong. Aluminum is worth way way more than glass so weighing the recyclables would make no sense(of course this is New Haven)

We must have really nice garbage men, they have been picking up garbage out of the blue bins for 2 months now.

Here's an old New Haven Independent article (from Nov. 2009) explaining how residents were to be rewarded with discounts at local stores depending upon how much they recycled. http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/a_new_recycling_day_dawns/
However, the original plan fell through due to financial difficulties with RecycleBank (article from March, 2010):
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/recycling_reforms_to_be_phased_in/

Just a small sampling of what I photographed today between First & Fourth Streets: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.3109286894769.2155415.1342249996&type=1&l=307bf3a0aa

REMINDER: Director of Public Works John Prokop and Christine Tang who is the head of the Office of Sustainability (recycling) will be attending the next Hill South Management Team meeting, Wed., Jan. 18th, 2012 at 6:00 PM at the Hill South Police Substation, 410 Howard Ave. They will be addressing any concerns residents [taxpayers/voters] have about the recycling program--such as everything that's been posted here in SeeClickFix.

UPDATE: At the Wed., Jan. 18, 2012 Hill South Management Team meeting, John Prokop (Director of Public Works) gave a detailed explanation of the economics behind the city's need to increase the recycling rate. The simplified version: the city (i.e. ultimately all of us who live here) PAYS to get rid of trash, but gets PAID FOR recyclables. So the more items that people separate and put in the blue toters, the more money we save. Mr. Prokop went into great detail about what's involved, what can and cannot be recyled, answered many questions from attendees. My personal gripe was that last week toters that weren't loaded properly didn't get emptied, creating a masssive mess everywhere. I'm happy to report that today all toters on my street were emptied--even those that weren't sorted properly.
Having said that, I still encourage everyone to "get with the program" and put any kind of paper, glass, cardboard, metal, and plastic--EXCEPT plastic bags!--into the blue toter. Mr. Prokop explained that the computer that sorts the recyclables can't read through plastic bags, so anything that's in a plastic bag gets charged to the city as trash.
Also do NOT put electronics (TVs, computers, etc.) into the blue toters. Currently these need to be dropped off at Public Works on Middletown Ave.--at no charge. (Barnard Environmental Magnet School at the intersection of E.T. Grasso Boulevard and Derby Ave. had been accepting electronics as well, but I'm waiting for a call-back from the school to find out if that is still the case. Secretary who answered didn't think so, but wasn't sure. I left message with person in charge of that program at Barnard and will post update when they get back to me.)
Construction/demolition materials can be disposed of at Public Works, but for a fee based on weight. (Or you can pay for a dumpster for such materials. Compare rates via the internet to get best price.)

Lets make it easy what goes in the blue container and what goes in the brown one?

BLUE CONTAINER:
PAPER of any kind (white, colored, junk mail, magazines, juice/milk cartons, catalogs, newspapers, books, paper bags)
METAL (cans, empty aerolsol cans, clean pie pans, aluminum foil, jar lids, bottle caps, small amounts of miscellaneous scrap metal)
PLASTIC (bottles, jugs, tubs)
GLASS (bottles, jars, smaller pieces of broken glass, e.g. window panes)
CARDBOARD

Smaller dark BROWN CONTAINER:
food scraps, diapers, plastic bags, plastic saran-wrap type food wrapping, styrofoam-type containers

Notice that there really isn't much that's supposed to go in the smaller container, but there's LOTS of stuff that's supposed to go in the larger Blue container.

An easy way to do this is to keep one small trash container in your kitchen (like most people already do) for food scraps, plastc bags, diapers, etc. and put that out each day in the brown toter.
Keep a Separate small trash container somewhere convenient in your home, e.g. perhaps near an exit door, and put all the cans, junk mail, bottles, etc. in that. Each time it fills up, dump that stuff in the Blue container.
So it's really only one extra step more than what we've all been doing already.

See my previous post regarding electronics & construction/demolition material. (Leaves & yard waste only are picked up April to Dec., leaves in paper bags only. I think most people finally have figured that one out!)

Whats funny is that I have the opposite problem and it may end up being your pet peeve as well. I have a problem with the garbage men(and I'm sure they feel the same since they strive to finish early and go home) having to look in each blue bin and decide whether its garbage or recycling. They have been doing this for months now here and I wonder when they will finally stop picking it up. By holding these ignorant peoples hand, even though they have been warned in many different languages numerous times, we are getting nowhere. I'm all for fines or incentives to recycle, the way the city is going about this is kind of sad. Not that I sort through garbage but I do look and the overflowing brown cans with no blue bin next to it are FILLED with recyclables.

At last night's [Jan 18] Hill South Management Team meeting, John Prokop (Dir. of Public Works) said they estimate it will take 12 months for people to get it right. The state is demanding a 50% recyling rate. New Haven is hoping for 30%. According to Mr. Prokop, at some point Public Works will stop coddling the non-compliers and begin issuing fines. However, because c. 70% of housing units in New Haven are rentals, issuing fines is somewhat complicated: Public Works [or LCI] first has to track down the landlord who, more often than not, lives outside New Haven and often out-of-state. Jorge Perez, President of the Board of Aldermen, said he wants to make it easier for the city to put leins on properties for unpaid fines. Currently some of our worst slumlords avoid repeated warnings and fines simply by flipping ownership from one LLC entity to another. A lein would make it impossible to do this until the fine is paid.

Please Check out this link.

http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/Sustainability/Recycling/Single_Stream.asp

Thanks for the link, LCI. IMPORTANT: I forgot to mention that cardboard PIZZA BOXES go in smaller TRASH toter, not Blue. That's because grease from pizzas makes the cardboard box not recyclable. All other cardboard (not similarly contaminated) goes in Blue.

I was told the top half/non-greasy side of the pizza box was perfectly acceptable for recycling.

Of course, as long as it's not contaminated with grease/cooking oil.

OK what goes in the large blue one?What goes in the brown one?

Barnard School (@ intersection of E.T. Grasso Boulevard and Derby Ave.) just got back to me. They collect electronics ONE week per year, to celebrate Earth Week. This year (2012) they will be collecting electronics at the school from April 23 through April 27. They receive a small amount of money for the electronics that are dropped off, which goes towards programs at the school.

To Joker: Please scroll down and read previous posts.

Ok Blue- plastic bottles,jugs,Tubs.Brown- plastic bags,saran wrap.PLEASE. styrofoam.Why not put it all togeather and seperate it at the end.To save a lot of money!Gas,insurance,ECT!

Yeah but how much do you have to pay the crew to sort through bags of feces Joker?

If The good people, cant get it right,YOU GOT TO HELP THEM!Make it EASY!JUST Tell them what you want them to do and they will do it!Its good that I dont have these PROBLEMS!

Today is just like all the other days.SOME TRASH IS IN,SOME TRASH IS OUT!

NOT MY PROBLEM!

Many households are too small for the blue totes--which are still too large for these households' recycling. They have presented problems both for storage and for ease of use. *Of course* the blue totes should not be used for trash. But I'd recommend that city sanitation use its judgment and continue to pick up recycling from the smaller blue bins.

Does anyone know what we should do if we have more "garbage" on any given week that our brown totes can hold or anything that would go into the recycle tote? Can we just put the additional materials in garbage bags?
Thanks

At last week's meeting someone asked John Prokop this same question. He said that it's OK to put extra garbage/trash in a plastic bag.

Where I live, there is a apartment in the attic & basement, and its a 2 family house, we only got 2 brown &2 blue and we all have to share,...we need more brown, family of 3 and family of 5, family of 2 and another family of 3....that's alot when 2 families have to share...they went by the mailboxes...we had 3 blue before this started.....how can we get more brown

AMMMMEN AMMMMMEN!

If your building is only a legal 2-family, the city is only going to issue 2 brown & 2 blue--because the building's owner is only paying property tax for a 2-family building, and therefore the building gets 2-family trash/recycling service. If the apartments which are in the attic & basement are separate, legal apartments--and the building is being TAXED as a 4-family--then it should get 4-family service, because that's the service that the owner is paying for with his/her property taxes on that property. Go to the following link, enter address number (only) in first blank, street name in second blank and click the "search" button to see how the building is assessed for tax purposes: http://data.visionappraisal.com/newhavenct/search.asp

I think that link I just posted won't work. Try this one, then click "Enter online database" then follow instructions in my previous post. http://data.visionappraisal.com/newhavenct/DEFAULT.asp

or just complain to your landlord...

I've been using my blue toter for recycling-only since this program began. I even put decals of the universal "recycling logo" [white triangle made of 3 arrows] on the top & sides of my blue toter. This morning the trash crew came by and emptied my brown toter--and my blue toter--into the trash truck. 5 minutes later the recycling truck came by, pulled my blue toter over to the truck only to discover that it was empty. I went outside & told them the trash crew had just emptied it into their truck along with my brown trash toter. One of the men replied "That's because those guys don't know what they're doing." So if the Public Works crews don't "get it", how can the city expect residents to "get it"??!

wow! In a normal city none of this would happen.

Attached photo is the type of decal which the city should have affixed to blue toters when the new recycling program was being implemented.

here is the sticker that the city put on our blue can

So I wonder why they didn't do that everywhere from the start? However, I think their sticker has "TMI" as my kids would say ["too much information"], just like the flyers that were attached to the brown toters--flyers that few read and that just ended up in the street. If they want a better complianace rate they need to follow the "KISS" principle: "Keep It Simple, Stupid".

At least you have a sticker on your blue toters. Our toters have nothing on them people just put trash in whatever and the trash still gets picked up. It's not like they recycled before and now you expect them to start all of a sudden. I say give them a 3 month education period and then I go with fine them either pay up or go to city hall fight the ticket people will learn

I agree, fine them or they will never learn. You can only coddle adults for so long. I know kids in FIRST GRADE that can figure out the deal here, why are so many people having such a hard time with this? I still see the big blue cans packed with garbage in my hood and it has been about 4 months now. How is the city helping anyone by doing this???

Last week my area finally received the stickers on blue toters (like the one "John" posted a photo of c. 1 month ago), explaining (in English & Spanish) what the blue toters may and may not be used for.

Today Public Works did not empty any blue toters that had garbage in them, which I think is great. HOWEVER, nearly all of these garbage-filled toters were filled incorrectly by renters living in absentee-landlord-owned properties: in other words, people who don't give a poop because they know it's the landlord--not they--who ultimately will be held resposible.

So would Public Works or LCI please let us know what the next step will be--before New Haven becomes Trash Haven?

since day one we have been recycling, i noticed the new stickers say all containers must be clean, that is very time consuming, also i notice a lot of people even the home owners themselves are using the blue cans as garbage, i guess cus they are not aware that they can be fined... my landlord lives in the same house , so she is very active in recycling, it took a while for people not to put their recycling in plastic bags then put in blue totes, when parents send their children out with the garbage they need to make sure they are putting it in the right one.

DPW & LCI need addresses so we can follow up on this issue.

OK, here’s a PARTIAL list compiled while taking a quick drive around the “City Point” section of The Hill:
Howard Ave: Nos. 356, 337, 314, 267, 184-186, 157 [=Laundromat; toters left on Fifth St.];
Greenwich Ave: Nos. 431 [toters are on First St.], 417, 375-381 [toters are on Second St.], 312, 303, 207-205;
First St.: No. 80;
Fifth St.: No. 79;
Hallock AVENUE: Nos. 288, 222 [toters are on Second St.], 196, 170-172
(I omitted several that are in front of homes whose owners or renters I know. Also, by the time you check these properties out, the toters may have been pulled off the treestrip/sidwalk.)
This list was compiled while taking a 10 minute drive around a rather small area, but I’ll bet there are plenty more like this all over the city….

Also, I forgot to mention that the list I just posted are addresses where the garbage in the recycling toters is overflowing, so can be seen when driving by. I'll bet that if you looked inside many other blue toters you'll see more that are filled with garbage--they just haven't started to overflow. Wait 'til next week....

That's quite a list.

We will follow up as best we can.

Thank you for the detailed post.

I would imagine that the the garbage/recyclers people could give LCI/DPW could give a very accurate quote eh? these are the guys who could tell you the percentages of people in the neighborhoods who dont actually understand the new city policies and still put garbage in the blue bins, I'm sure.

Its going to take many fines before people get it around here. Many many fines, quote me.

So the city fines and then folks complain and all of a sudden they are horrible people and way to heavy handed with fines. If the city doesn't fine, then this blog goes on for ever.
At hand here is that you expect the city to force change learned behavior on a massive scale.

“Trash is down. Recycling is up. And the city is reaping the benefits—to the tune of $2 million….In the ‘inner city,’ the rates are lower because there are more high-turnover rentals, said refuse supervisor Edwin Martinez. ‘If the landlord lives at the home you get a lot better compliance.’ If a collector does hit upon a blue Toter contaminated with garbage, the driver of the truck makes a note of the address, Martinez said. The house receives a ‘DPE Waste Collection Notice’… informing the occupant of the problem. Another copy is sent by mail. It’s not a citation, Martinez said. But if contamination is a repeated problem, the city’s public space inspector is notified and can issue a ticket for littering.…
ALDERMEN CAN BE KEY to recycling rates, said Martinez. In Fair Haven, the rollout of the new Toters was accompanied by a big push by the local aldermen. The neighborhood hit the 20-percent range relatively quickly.” http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/city_cashes_in_on_rising_recycling/

Related post (re. overflowing toters on sidewalk all week over at 31 Kimberly Ave hair salon) http://seeclickfix.com/issues/164514

Another trash & recycling day in my neighborhood--and another day of overflowing blue toters full of garbage that's been smoldering away for several weeks now. City needs to start taking action before people begin to lose their tempers...

Here’s how one neighbor [who will remain un-named] has dealt with this at one or more properties: immediately after trash pick-up the garbage in blue toters was transferred to the smaller garbage toters—then the blue toters were SEALED SHUT with deck screws. The blue toters then were placed upside-down and out-of-sight alongside the slummy absentee-landlord-owned building—so tenants can no longer misuse them and neighbors don’t have to look at the mess.

And now no recycling happens, and city property was willfully damaged. Oh, btw those tenants will continue to produce the same amount of trash, except now it will be loose all over the place. Way to go hero. Lets hope they don't defeat those deck screws with a screwdriver.

This issue was recategorized from Other to Trash & Recycling.

We are closing older Trash and Recycling issues from 2011-2015 in order to focus on current Trash and Recycling issues. Many of the older issues were addressed through our regularly scheduled collection but were never closed. If your Trash and Recycling issue remains please open a new See Click Fix issue. Thanks.