News Articles

Holden takes part in recycling campaign

By SCOTT DYER
Advocate staff writer
Published: Nov 14, 2007 - Page: 1B

Mayor-President Kip Holden rolled up his sleeves Tuesday and helped collect recyclables to help bring attention to city-parish efforts to boost its recycling tonnage.

“Just don’t call me a trashy mayor,” Holden joked.

Since going to a single-stream system of recycling last year, East Baton Rouge Parish has increased its recycling tonnage by an average of 38 percent per month, and city-parish officials want to increase that to 50 percent by the end of year.

Under the new single-stream system, parish residents can place all their recyclable materials into the new recycling carts without separating newspapers from cans, plastics and other items.

Holden noted that recycling not only extends the life of the local landfill but also allows for the remanufacturing of recyclable materials.

Steven Cheatham of the Recycling Foundation said his company took over the city-parish recycling contract in November 2005, and went to the single-source system, in which recyclables are separated at company’s state-of-the-art plant on Tom Drive.

Today, the plant not only handles East Baton Rouge recyclables, but also those collected in Lafayette, the Houma area and the Covington-Mandeville area, he said.

City-parish Recycling Director Susan Hamilton said the parish just set an all-time record for recycling tonnage last month with 1,431 tons.

By the end of 2008, the goal is to increase recycling tonnage by 60 percent over the pre-single stream recycling, Hamilton said. The office issues cumulative recycling reports dating back to 1989.

Local recycling efforts recently received more support when East Baton Rouge Parish was selected by Curbside Value Partnership,  she said.

An invitation-only program, the Curbside Value Partnership enlists the efforts of the Aluminum Association, the Can Manufacturer’s Institute and corporations like Alcoa nationwide to help increase recycling participation rates in local curbside programs.

Communities participating in the Curbside Value Partnership include Arlington County, Va.; Brevard County, Fla.; Denver, Colo.; Lancaster and York counties in Pennsylvania; and Omaha, Neb.

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