Recycling Problems

Property across alley from me

A Bashir Moghul property around the corner.

Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman

My first post of any substance on NXNS revolved around John Hoff finally convincing me to begin recycling, and since then I've been watching a few Hawthorne dynamics out of the corner of my eye.  One issue that I keep on seeing is nearby landlord-owned multi-family housing with the maximum number of recycling bins out back.  This is great in theory, except that often the bins are never used.  I can tell you with a relative degree of certainty that the bins pictured above have never moved from their respective spots.  That got me wondering how many other landlords were doing the same thing.  I have made a few passes through the alleys near my place and found properties owned by Robert Serr that have the same thing going on.

Just so everyone is aware, garbage isn't even collected from where these bins are placed.  There is no alley at the property and bins are out front.

Wot's this then gents?  More bins stored nowhere near the garbage/recycling pickup!

Once is an annoyance, twice is a coincidence, and three (technically four) times on three consecutive blocks starts to look like a pattern to me.  Which begs a series of questions...

...Do people get the $7 monthly discount just for having the recycling bins?  Or do they actually have to recycle?  How does the city track the use of its recycling containers?  How long can a person go without recycling before either the bin is collected or the monthly discount is removed?  If the use of the bins and the corresponding discounts were fully tracked and enforced, what kind of impact would that have on our already strained city budget?

On that last one, let's use Pamiko Properties as a hypothetical example.  Koenig at one point owned 80 or more properties in Minneapolis.  Most of them were duplexes, with a handful of single-family homes and some four- or six-unit properties thrown in.  We'll say an average of two units per property for the sake of math.  If he put bins out behind every property, that would be 160 units, at a $7.00 discount per unit, for a total of $1,120 per month, or $13,440 per year.  That would be just one landlord's savings (if Koenig were to have done this at the height of his empire).

And just to be clear regarding this issue, I don't care how good or bad a landlord is; if they or their tenants are recycling, they should get the discount, and if they've got bins but aren't using them, the city ought to take the bins away or at least remove the discount.

While I'm on the topic of recycling bins, it's time for a little Irving Inquisition-style "Jerk Du Jour."  (warning: Bad Words ahead)  The Hawkman's jerk du jour is the idiot who keeps on putting regular garbage in my recycling bin.  Neighbors have said it's someone who lives in the blue house to the south of me.  This has happened each of the last three Fridays, AFTER garbage and/or recycling has been collected.  It would be one thing if the trash bins were full to the point of overflowing, but instead some lazy ass just can't manage the Herculean effort of lifting the damned lid.

They left another bag just sitting next to the bin.  Raccoons, cats, or other scavengers have been sifting through this crud too.

I've talked to my neighbors, I've talked to my landlord, and I've talked to the property management company now in place.  Since this kept on happening, the only real solution was to take my bin back inside.  The problem with that is that the bottom of the bin now contained a congealed layer of frozen trash and cat piss, and upon thawing, this amazing new smell took over my apartment until I bleached the hell out of the bin and burned incense for several hours straight.  I consoled myself by thinking about Dante's Inferno and what these idiots might wind up doing for eternity in Hell as an ironic payback for being such assholes.

And now back to our regular programming.  When I posted these questions on my Facebook profile, I got dozens of comments about what's wrong with our recycling program here in Minneapolis.  The biggest issue my FB friends seemed to have was that the whole paper bag sorting requirement is cumbersome and actually decreases participation.  Other cities just go with big recycling bins for everything, and then it gets sorted after collection.  Why aren't we doing that here if it would encourage more folks to participate?  What other issues do folks, especially in NoMi have when it comes to recycling?