Green Bexley: Feet on the Street program may help ease climate anxiety
Like many, I have worked through my share of the Sunday scaries, a dread associated with the impending return to normal weekday activities like school or work.
However, the root of my angst is unusual – I am distressed about the contents of Bexley’s recycling toters. My predicament may sound ridiculous, and in the overall scheme of life, that may be true. However, my climate anxiety is real, and to me, this feels like we’re trending in the wrong direction.
Sunday evenings are, theoretically, a lovely time for me to walk or tricycle around the neighborhood. Yet every time I do it, I’m saddened by the amount of unaccepted items I see flowing out of recycling toters: plastic bags, clamshell containers, electronics, Styrofoam, Solo cups, potted plants and unbroken down boxes. Even worse, I’ve seen plastic unicorns, furniture and clothes that could be worn or donated.
The city of Bexley implemented a curbside recycling program more than 30 years ago. I’m of the opinion that by this point in the game, we should be recycling correctly each time we put something in the toter.
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Taking the time to Recycle Right is a small way to engage with the environment more mindfully, which is a core tenant of sustainability. Recycling serves as a microcosm for sustainability practices; it's relatively simple, not cost prohibitive and something we’ve been practicing as a community for more than three decades.
There is a general consensus that recycling is a great place to start, but a bad place to stop. I can confidently say that as a community, refining our recycling practice is one way to move forward. To me, recycling seems like a natural first step in one’s sustainability journey.
Residents under 30 years old have been doing this their entire lives. Many classrooms have blue bins, recycling bins are strategically placed along Main Street and almost every home in the city puts out a blue toter on a regular basis. It’s hard for me to imagine a home recycling incorrectly yet installing solar panels on their roofs, utilizing low impact forms of transportation or rethinking the way they engage with the agrifood system to reduce environmental impact.
To help make sure our recycling is impactful, the Feet on the Street program will take place in Bexley in October.
The city has received funding from the Ohio EPA to implement The Recycling Partnership’s nationally acclaimed recycling education program, in partnership with Good Land, Rumpke and SWACO. This program is one effort to improve the quality of recycling in single-stream curbside recycling carts by providing real-time recycling education and feedback. The Recycling Partnership has successfully implemented this program in 70 communities across the country, including Columbus and Gahanna, with some communities seeing a 57% decrease of non-recyclables in recycling and a 27% increase in the overall capture of quality recyclables.
The quality of our recycling will be measured before and after the program, and we’re planning to release these results and any correlation to the program and the work towards our zero waste goal by December.
More information about Feet on the Street can be found at bexley.org/fots. Thank you for doing your part to clean our recycling stream, and feel free to be in touch if you’d like to join me on a peaceful Sunday walk or tricycle ride.
Elizabeth Ellman is the city of Bexley’s Sustainability Programs coordinator. Learn more about the city’s sustainability programs at bexley.org/sustainability and how you can take action at greenbexley.org and @greenbexley on Facebook and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Green Bexley: Feet on the Street program may help ease climate anxiety
