Texas Cities Trail for Recycling Participation
by Trey Granger
Published on July 30th, 2008
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The New York Times has released the results of a new study into recycling rates of major American cities, and the Texas cities of Houston and San Antonio were the only ones mentioned that had below 10 percent of waste being recycled.
The study claims that the national average is 32 percent, while Houston is at 2.6 percent and San Antonio is at 4.0 percent. The article also claims that 25,000 Houstonians have been waiting 10 years for curbside recycling bins.
A few of the issues cited in Houston’s defense of low recycling rates were:
- Inexpensive landfill costs
- City zoning issues that would make collection difficult
- Little public commitment to sort recyclables
The city does have nine recycling drop-off centers, which you can find locations for using Earth 911.
The four cities mentioned with the highest percentage of recycled waste were in California: San Francisco (69.0 percent), Los Angeles (62.0 percent), San Jose (61.0 percent) and San Diego (54.9 percent).
