The Observation Deck

Charlie Page wrote:After reading my water bill, I started thinking about the need for a mandatory recycling. In 2007 the City’s recycling rate was 39% (from the Performance Audit). My water bill says last years recycling rate was 32%. Did we really decrease 5% from 2007?

Sorry....should be 7% decrease from 2007

Charlie Page wrote:

Jim O'Bryan wrote:Does the city even recycle?

I seem to recall seeing a few can recycling containers at City Hall. Although I could be wrong.

Not City Hall, the city.


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I just had time to read the replies on my comments of the recycling flyer from a city government that is full of itself. I would never expect the Lakewood City Council to pass simple and eloquent ordnance about anything. The only things they are good at during council meetings at are the “at a boys or girlsâ€￾ resolutions and rubber stamping backdoor committee legislation. As usual, the Council passed legislation that drives a nail with a pile driver and in addition communicates it with a “thou shallâ€￾ flyer and yes, it was arrogant. We already pay taxes for garbage pickup; however, if you feel the need to contribute to garbage pickup if it’s not recyclable, please send the City a check, I’m sure they have many different toilets to flush it down with. Not only did they not seek sharing the responsibilities of recycling with the citizens of Lakewood, they didn’t provide containers for collection of recycling materials under a guise that it causes collection problems.

Any city legislator worth their salt would never allow the flexibility of any administration to make rules as deemed necessary. The Lakewood Council simply enacted an ordinance that disowns them from having to revisit what they apparently consider a trivial issue and ensures deniability of all responsibly in the likely event of administrative stupidity in the enforcement of this ordinance.

I don’t believe the city will go through your garbage, but then again, if you don’t have the required little plastic bags cluttering the tree lawn on garbage pickup day, you may find the City pursuing selective enforcement. If the City will not pick up garbage because they suspect that you’re not recycling, to what extent is the City willing to pursue for enforcing a recycling ordnance at the expense of public safety?

I do have a suggestion; if you’re short on plastic bags, and afraid that the new Lakewood City Department of Garbage Police will suspect you’re not doing your part of recycling, simply have your dog walking friends deposit their bags on your tree lawn. After all, it does go with the kind of legislation that comes out of this City Council.

I just had time to read the replies on my comments of the recycling flyer from a city government that is full of itself. I would never expect the Lakewood City Council to pass simple and eloquent ordnance about anything. The only things they are good at during council meetings at are the “at a boys or girlsâ€￾ resolutions and rubber stamping backdoor committee legislation. As usual, the Council passed legislation that drives a nail with a pile driver and in addition communicates it with a “thou shallâ€￾ flyer and yes, it was arrogant. We already pay taxes for garbage pickup; however, if you feel the need to contribute to garbage pickup if it’s not recyclable, please send the City a check, I’m sure they have many different toilets to flush it down with. Not only did they not seek sharing the responsibilities of recycling with the citizens of Lakewood, they didn’t provide containers for collection of recycling materials under a guise that it causes collection problems.

Any city legislator worth their salt would never allow the flexibility of any administration to make rules as deemed necessary. The Lakewood Council simply enacted an ordinance that disowns them from having to revisit what they apparently consider a trivial issue and ensures deniability of all responsibly in the likely event of administrative stupidity in the enforcement of this ordinance.

I don’t believe the city will go through your garbage, but then again, if you don’t have the required little plastic bags cluttering the tree lawn on garbage pickup day, you may find the City pursuing selective enforcement. If the City will not pick up garbage because they suspect that you’re not recycling, to what extent is the City willing to pursue for enforcing a recycling ordnance at the expense of public safety?

I do have a suggestion; if you’re short on plastic bags, and afraid that the new Lakewood City Department of Garbage Police will suspect you’re not doing your part of recycling, simply have your dog walking friends deposit their bags on your tree lawn. After all, it does go with the kind of legislation that comes out of this City Council.

Richard,

Amen, amen, and again amen.

The sad thing to me about this (in my opinion) is the adversarial climate that all of this seems to be creating between Lakewood citizenry and city government; at a time when "building our brand" needs to be at the forefront of our consideration.

Senior citizens and the disabled have already been alienated by cutbacks.

Youth continue to need more independent recreational options.

Many Lakewood streets are starting to resemble mini-Grand Canyons.

And now? They want us to curbside recycle, but are providing no sanitary recepticles to do so (even Cleveland does that!)

...and little assurance that those materials will ultimately even BE recycled, in this economic climate...

This is all so very pitiful. Really pitiful.

The management of decline? To me, that seems to be developing into quite an oxymoron....

Any solutions, Richard or Gary? Any positive ideas on how to increase participation in recycling without making it 'mandatory'?

Brian,

As I would sincerely hope you know that I am very much about being positive.

Negative people seldom play the banjo.

There are larger questions here that need, no, beg, for answers. To seek those answers is not being negative in any way.

Like, for example, anticipating all that curbide broken glass, medical containers, sharp crushed tin cans, and no safe place to put them into.

Who's liable, when some libertine child comes along to examine all that stuff on the tree lawn? The City mandates that it must be there, but provides no place to put it, as other cities do.

There are far too many unanswered questions.

Far too many.

You know, organized religion finally saw the folly of "pray, pay and obey" thinking. It's a shame that some civil governments don't seem to understand that compulsion breeds hostility, resentment, and all too often, backlash.

I would hope that my entire life would be seen as a positive and affirmitave response to injustice and all manner of evil, wherever seen and however encountered.

We increase recycling by positive steps of example and encouragement. More and more people in this country are doing it all the time.

Draconian, one-size-fits-all measures, are simply wrong- and completely un-American in character.

This in my honest POSITIVE opinion.

I've been recycling for as long as I can remember. 9 years ago when we lived in the Bay area recycling was mandatory. They would randomly pick someone's trash to go through (oh and we had those big rolling cans, but there was no snow there) and if they found recyclable materials you would be fined. We were not provided with recycling containers. As for recycling my family usually puts out two large bags of recycling a week as does the other family in our double. Our treelawn is about 18 inches so the recycling goes on the sidewalk. No one has ever been hurt by our recycling so I don't think that has been a problem. Honestly I would rather put our recycling in plastic bags because I have a separate trash can in my kitchen for them as do most of my friends. Perhaps it's my relatively young age but recycling just seems natural to me. Anyhow I don't see how people who don't have any recycling could be fined because they won't have any recycling in their trash. I don't think that people will be looking for blue bags they will be checking to see if there a recyclables in the regular trash. Honestly recycling is a very easy thing to do and sorry if I sound rude but really if you have recyclable like most people do then it's pretty damn irresponsible to not take the 30 seconds to put it into a not container even if that is a blue grocery bag hanging on the door nob so excuse if it seems rude but please recycle people our landfills don't need to be filled with items that can be recycled, thanks for doing your part as a responsible citizen.

My recommendation would follow a progression of the following steps; first, the city should set the example and ensure they recycling, second, ask the citizens to recycle for all the good reasons, third, provide the citizens a simple receptacle [a green or blue bin like most civilized city governments do] to encourage recycling, fourth, educate the children and have them promote recycling at home, fifth, as a last resort pass a simple ordinance requiring citizens recycle that does not contain threats of torture and bankruptcy from fines. This would have required some effort by the City to solicit help with recycling from the citizens using civil tones, but anything is possible with the right leadership. Incidentally, since the City does not provide receptacles to the citizens, then why are they provided to City employees? Let the city employees provide their own clear or blue plastic bags and put them on the tree lawns at all the many City buildings.

The health issue is the City’s refusal to pick up someone’s garbage allowing it to "ripen" and attract insects, rodents and animals because the Lakewood Garbage Cityland Police find the much revered aluminum can accidently discarded in a citizens garbage can. The most asinine part of the ordnance is making it illegal for someone, other than the city or its designated political contributor contractors to pick up recycling items off the tree lawn. The absolute highest form of recycling appliances, old tools, sinks, electronics, toilets, the list goes on forever, is to have some enterprising person in a truck or van pickup the discarded items and repair it for sale and reuse.

Perhaps the City Council, Mayor and the appointed department management thoughts on recycling were encompassed in a 96 gallon trash can. I believe it’s a long term culture in the Lakewood City government that promotes a view that the citizens of Lakewood are lowly subordinates that over the years has been propagated by many disinterested councils and ineffective Mayors.

The simplest way to change the City’s continuing attitude towards the citizens is an across-the-board replacement of City’s elected officials in the next two elections. We need representatives that willing to make wholesale replacements the appointed positions with a management team that understands the principles of providing service and importance of soliciting cooperation with the citizens they are paid to serve.

"Like, for example, anticipating all that curbide broken glass, medical containers, sharp crushed tin cans, and no safe place to put them into."

You are NOT supposed to recycle broken glass or medical waste. Crushed cans, I do not find particularly dangerous while sitting in a blue bag on the curb.

Regardless, this is a separate issue, as people have been recycling in this fashion all along, just not everyone.

I imagine that if the city were purchasing new recycling bins, there'd be just as much uproar about the spending.

And, it WOULD slow down collection to have bins that must be emptied as opposed to just picking up the bags and tossing them.

Also, amen, Danielle!

I know things tend to get overly dramatic on the Deck, but my goodness.

So far I've seen the words "servitude", "nightmare", "draconian", and "gestapo" used in this thread. And the topic is recycling.

Gee,

Maybe people are just running out of adjectives?

I, for one, could have thought of a few more...

It just seems to me that people are simply expressing procedural and policy concerns here, rather than the issue of recycling itself.

Just trying to avoid problems later.

Lots of them.

But ya'll know how it goes...

Sometimes experience is the best teacher....

Back to the banjo.