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Left Out Of The Cycle

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By LAURA FRAZIER

lfrazier@tampatrib.com

Published: December 10, 2008

BRANDON - Eco-minded Hillsborough County residents who live in single-family homes and want to recycle glass, plastics and paper need do nothing more than separate the items and set them out with their trash once a week for collection.

But apartment dwellers who want to go green often find themselves kicked to the curb.

Belinda Loss said like many apartment communities in Brandon, the complex she calls home does not make it easy or even possible to recycle. And like many of her neighbors, she met with resistance from the community's managers when she asked them to provide recycling services.

"A lot of apartments and condominiums either don't want the hassle of organizing it or they don't want to pay for it," Loss said.

The county contracts with three waste haulers to provide optional once-a-week collection of recyclables at all single-family homes. The cost is tacked on to all taxpayers' annual property tax bills. Commercial entities and institutions are encouraged to contract recycling services on their own, but many do not.

Liz Brown, the county's manager of commercial recycling, said recycling is not mandatory in Hillsborough, but the county places an emphasis on educating residents and business owners about how and why to recycle.

Brown fields a few calls a week from apartment managers requesting information about commercial recycling. She answers common questions, helps them clearly define their recycling needs and refers them to one or more appropriate handlers.

Brown believes most of those inquiries were initiated by residents who asked their apartment managers to provide recycling services.

"The impression I get is that they don't want to take the time to sit and listen as to how it can save them money," Brown said.
Commercial customers pay a sliding-scale fee for solid waste disposal, depending on the amount they dispose of. When glass, paper and plastic are removed from the mix, the disposal fee goes down. Brown said in most cases the reduced disposal fees offset recycling collection fees.

"If a ton a month is recycled, it offsets the regular trash disposal costs 100 percent," Brown said. "Apartments with 175 or more units are almost certain to see savings."

Richard Abramowitz, spokesman for trash and recycling hauler Waste Management in Tampa, said interest in recycling at apartments has gone up dramatically, but it can be a tough sell and a challenging prospect in the end.

"The main reason they don't want to recycle is because when you set up recycling dumpsters or a compactor you have to give up parking spaces," Abramowitz said. "Those spaces are at a premium and they don't want to give them up."

It is also common for residents who successfully pitch for programs at their complexes to later find out it's more of a hassle than they bargained for.

"Apartment folks don't always have room to store their recyclables, and then they have to bring it all down to the dumpster or compactor. It becomes quite the challenge," Abramowitz said.

But Loss said it's a challenge she and many other apartment renters are up to and eager for.

"The amount of paper, plastic and glass thrown in the trash every week at all these apartments is just not acceptable. Something must be done about it," she said.

For information about Hillsborough County's commercial recycling program, go to www.hillsboroughcounty.org/solidwaste/commercialre... or call (813) 272-5680

Reporter Laura Frazier can be reached at (813) 657-4523.

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