Who’s Taking Care of the 8,000 Tons of Trash From Mardi Gras?
New Orleans’ recycling program was completely eliminated after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Mardi Gras in New Orleans generates an estimated 8,000 tons of trash that includes recyclables such as plastic cups, glass bottles and even party beads. Photo: Flickr/MadAboutCows
While the city pledged to bring back curbside service as recently as 2008, it faced crippling budget shortfalls that couldn’t support the $8 million annual cost of curbside. As a result, New Orleans residents never saw those promises come into fruition.
That gaping hole left by lack of recycling access could be even more obvious this week. During Mardi Gras, waste workers collect an average of 8,000 tons of trash in the French Quarter. To put that into perspective, that’s enough to fill three Olympic-size swimming pools, according to USA Today.
Mardi Gras is normally the biggest challenge for SDT Waste and Debris Services, which is responsible for the after-party cleanup. Sidney Torres IV, the head of SDT, tells USA Today that this year’s job will be a tall order because Mardi Gras arrives just after the New Orleans Saints’ first-ever Super Bowl victory. Harder partying undoubtedly means more trash. Trash that includes commonly recyclable materials.
One of the major reasons for the loss of recycling services after Hurricane Katrina was the destruction of an Allied Waste processing plant in East New Orleans.
According to Torres, garbage companies fled when the city was under water. He quickly pounced on the opportunity and bought a dumpster, a truck and started charging residents pre-Katrina prices.
Today the company owns 150 trucks, services 1,700 households and businesses in 15 parishes and generates about $3.5 million a month in revenue. SDT also recently launched a recycling program is available to new and existing SDT residential customers within service areas, charging $18 per month. Phoenix Recycling of New Orleans is also another curbside option that residents can pay for.
But change could soon be in the city’s future. On Feb. 4, grassroots organization NOLA Recycles 2010 announced that four of the six major mayoral candidates – Rob Couhig, John Georges, Mitch Landrieu and James Perry – have vowed to support reinstating city-sponsored curbside recycling.
For now, residents and businesses will still have to set aside a budget for their recycling needs. In other words, recycling in the city of New Orleans is possible, but it comes with a price.
UPDATE:
Allied Waste (Republic Services) has reopened its new recycling facility in Metairie, La. in September 2009. This facility provides a drop-off location for commercial, industrial and residential services for the entire Metro New Orleans area.
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Review On Who’s Taking Care of the 8000 Tons of Trash From Mardi Gras? | 191Review.Com
posted on February 17th, 2010 at 1:44 am
[...] For now, residents and businesses will still have to set aside a budget for their recycling needs. In other words, recycling in the city of New Orleans is possible, but it comes with a price. [Earth911.com] [...]
Buzz
posted on February 17th, 2010 at 2:02 am
An additional 8000 tons of trash in NOLA? Who’s going to notice?
Greg Nothacker
posted on February 17th, 2010 at 9:36 am
In response particularly to the last sentence in the article, recycling ALWAYS COMES AT A PRICE. What advocates of curbside recycling notoriously fail to include in the equation is both the cost of collection and the huge carbon footprint associated with making a separate collection run. In the analysis of conventional curbside recycling, the cost is most often greater than the benefit. (a typical truck used for recycling and garbage collection gets between 2 and 4 miles per gallon of Diesel. Each gallon of Diesel spews 22 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere). Weekly recycling routes ADD 33% to the carbon footprint associated with solid waste removal.
From an economic perspective, there are very very high capital and labor cost in separating recyclables and this is never offset by the sale of separated materials (paper, plastics, aluminum, etc.) Recycling will only work when subsidized. Amanda, Recycling ALWAYS comes with a price.
Greg Nothacker, MBA
Sr. Consultant
ZenMark, Inc.
Myles F. Omaha
posted on February 17th, 2010 at 10:33 am
I recycle but it’s really only to save on buying garbage bags. I do not believe it really gets recycled. Most of the recyclables just go to a landfill anyway because not a whole lot actually can be recycled – there are no proper processing plants around. As it is not many people are interested in recycling in New Orleans. Because it would require effort. Even if citizens did recycle, the amount of plastic and glass thrown out at bars and restaurants would make any citizen effort a moot point.
Where I live, in Mandeville, LA, a garbage truck comes by once a week to pick up recyclables.
For all the recycling I do, one hurricane makes it all a moot point. It’s very strange.
Truth
posted on February 17th, 2010 at 11:15 am
$3,500,000.00 a month would be enough to service 10′s of thousands of homes rather than 1700 resident homes, there seems to be fuzzy math here or else there is greed here. It is the duty of the bar rooms and stores to keep there store fronts free of trash and the city’s to sweep the streets and the patrons to place trash in a provided receptacle, as well as signage to point out trash containers. That said, if one fails you have what you see in the picture. You walk by with an empty cup in your hand, looking for a place to discard it. You come upon a trash can full with a pile all around it. What do we do? we put the trash where we think trash should go; with other trash. We do need to be more responsibly. but in the end It all gets cleaned up, the businesses make money, the city makes money, the trash collector makes a bundle. And we as citizens must pay our share to have a wonderful place to live and grow, good streets to drive on, hospitals to care for the ill, strong defense, and good food for our families, America. A place where people work, people profit, and people give back, to make this the wonderful place it is. I say this because those who are rich, get there profits from people, even the poor alike, who also work hard, even if it is to pick up trash, or serve hamburgers, or make millions telling others what to do, we all care for our America and who lives here. Don’t we? It is by God’s good Grace we still have a free and wonderful place, ruled by law and sustained by Love. The love for our fellow man. Love that says I will not let you die of thirst, or die of a curable disease, or lie your head down in the street. For in Love we are better than that. We care. We are Americans.
Joe Jericho
posted on February 17th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
I tell ya what. If you guys want us to recycle, then come down here and recycle our sht for us. Otherwise, leave the party to us while y’all live miserable lives. Couillon!
Karla Swacker
posted on February 18th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Point of clarification–while Allied Waste’s New Orleans recycling processing facility was heavily damaged, it reopened in 2009 as a single stream processing plant. We are currently taking commercial volumes, residential volumes from dropoff programs in southeast Louisiana, and hold a free residential drop off the first Saturday of every month, 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. 804 L & A Road, Metairie, LA. All standard household recycling program materials accepted, but NO GLASS.
Thanks for letting us update your information.
sal
posted on March 3rd, 2010 at 12:17 pm
If all that trash was recycled and the money put back into New Orleans would surely be a positive thing. It just sounds like another situation where people complain….but do nothing to help the issue.