Guest post: Darden Rice on how St. Pete got its recycling groove back
For years, St. Pete curbside recycling proponents huffed and puffed and never blew the house down. Former Mayor Rick Baker took an absurdly self-defeating and unexplained hostile opposition to what seemed the world’s most basic and innocuous concept of sustainability: Don’t throw away or burn reusable resources.
The lack of this service in our city became a bad joke, an embarrassing missing piece of a self-proclaimed Green City, and eventually a normalized dysfunction that some of us (and you know who you are) dusted off our Earth Day hats to dutifully and loudly complain about at every election cycle.
Until now.
St. Pete finally has curbside recycling within its sights. Wow. All of our citizen grassroots pressure and public scolding finally paid off.
But how did it happen?
I won’t focus on why it took so long. The old diatribes against ex-Mayor Baker are beside the point. Let’s just say he was no friend, and for some us who have always wanted recycling, today is an even Greater Day in St. Petersburg.
The new Mayor Bill Foster is looking at this issue anew. It makes a big difference when City Hall gets into solution mode, and this is something we should be grateful for with the new administration.
It is important to understand how much the County’s next steps play in this city decision. Waste Services smartly bid low for a contract that will mean, in effect, that St. Pete citizens can subscribe for $2.75 a month for curbside recycling once a week with an 18 gallon container. ($2.75 is the lowest price we have seen in years.) Waste Services and the Mayor are betting wisely that this will open up to more customers, kick start what will become a citywide mandatory program, and encourage the county to use the $100 million sitting in the bank for dedicated Solid Waste Enterprise Funds to start a county program.
Eventually St. Pete would be reimbursed for a citywide mandatory pick up program. Although I am a little disappointed in a subscription fee, don’t get me wrong.
This is a great first step to eventually getting a mandatory citywide program in the next few years. Far from being a half-loaf victory, this current curbside recycling plan is something St. Pete can be proud of.
We can wear our Green City designation with much greater sincerity and meaning. We know that because of our work, we finally accomplished curbside recycling, and the City now regularly considers more conservation and efficiency policies than it did a few years ago.
Be sure and thank the Mayor and the City Council Members who helped bring this about. They need to know the public appreciates this accomplishment.
