The City of Cleveland will allow residents to opt-in to curbside recycling pick up starting this week with the goal of starting the city’s recycling program again by the end of 2021.It’s the first of a long series of moves the city plans on making to restart Cleveland’s recycling program after a consultant’s report detailing problems with the existing recycling system and offering options to fix it.
City of Cleveland Chief Operating Officer, Darnell Brown, and Chief of Sustainability, Jason Wood, told News 5 Cleveland before April of 2020, about 150,000 households had recycling picked up from the curb. They expect 30,000-35,000 households to participate in the opt-in program, which they hope will result in lower bids to process that recycling. “The point is to create a universe of customers who want to be in the program and will do it in the correct way,” said Brown.
The smaller number of participating households also means it will be easier for the city to educate residents about how to recycle properly and that the people who decide to participate in the program will be more likely to pay close attention to what they put in the recycling bin, keeping contamination rates down. “Instead of just sort of putting information out there, we’ll be able to go directly to the folks who have opted into the program to communicate specifics about materials and any program changes and deferments that happen through there,” said Wood.