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Recycling Finally Comes To St. Pete

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 26, 2008

As progressive as the city of St. Petersburg is, it's mind-boggling that it is the largest municipality in Florida not offering residents and businesses curbside pickup of recyclable materials. Instead, folks have to load up bottles, jugs and other stuff and take them to collection centers, which is a deterrent to widespread recycling.

It's even more of a head-scratcher that Mayor Rick Baker has resisted giving residents and merchants such an easy way to help protect the environment. He argues - without offering concrete evidence - that curbside collection doesn't offer all the environmental benefits that many tout because more trucks are needed to accomplish the task.

Fortunately, Pinellas County government officials are offering to do the work - and pay for it too. It should be a win-win situation for the city and Baker, who also has been concerned about the cost. But there's a potential hang-up: whether the new service will be offered weekly or - gulp - monthly. The county proposes once-a-week; Baker favors monthly collections but may warm to weekly if his environmental concerns are addressed.

The mayor offers a couple of good solutions to the environmental issues, including planting trees to offset the additional carbon emissions that more garbage truck trips would generate and buying natural gas-powered trucks. But it would be unfair for Pinellas to bear those costs; the city should be willing to cover them, considering the county's generosity.

The biggest issue is how often the material should be picked up at curbside. Granted, any pickup would be a major achievement since it's not available now for people who want to recycle. But expecting families and businesses to stockpile their recyclables for a month is absurd. Weekly pickups would be far better.

The city and county should work together to offer more frequent pickups. People likely would recycle more because of the convenience that weekly curbside pickup offers. Either way, Baker shouldn't lose sight of the forest for the trees, as he's done up to this point.

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