Soyer: Landlords should provide recycling

January 28, 2016

Garbage bins overflow at the apartment buildings near the pedestrian mall on Tuesday Jan. 19, 2016. Members of the Iowa City Council will soon vote on providing recycling services for apartments in Iowa City. (The Daily Iowan/Mary Mathis)

Hannah Soyer
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An ordinance that would require landlords of apartment complexes and condominiums to provide recycling services for their tenants is currently being drafted by the city of Iowa City, and it will hopefully be reviewed and passed sometime early this year. Right now, recycling services are provided by the city to single-family homes and residences with four units or fewer. Of course, most apartment buildings have more than four units, leaving out a large portion of the city’s waste-making population.

Jennifer Jordan, the city’s recycling coordinator, put it this way: “Right now, only about 55 percent of Iowa City’s population has access to recycling at their homes. Everyone can use our community drop-off sites, but providing recycling to people where they live is the best way to ensure that more people recycle more materials.”

I couldn’t agree more. I lived in the dorms my first two years in Iowa City, and although I was aware that some students didn’t make use of the little blue recycling bins that were provided for each room, I was a diligent user. Anything that could be put into that little blue bin, I put in. When it was full, I simply took it to the big recycling bin down the hall. Thus, recycling was easy.

Now, I live in an apartment on Washington Street, near DP Dough. When I first moved in, I bought an extra garbage can to be used as a recycling bin and told my roommates that I would take it across the street to the Co-op, which conveniently has public recycling bins, every time it got full. Up until it got bitterly cold outside, this is what I did. Still, the experience wasn’t as convenient as I thought it would be. Once I took the recycling to the Co-op, I had to separate it into compost, plastic, metal, and glass. It wasn’t difficult, but it did get messy.

Sure, the other people living in my apartment building could separate recycling and take it there, but even I have given up with the weather the way it is, because the sorting and separating has to be done outside. Instead, my apartment building should have a giant recycling bin down in the garage, next to the giant garbage bins, that renters can throw their recyclables in.

In 2012, the Iowa City Landfill & Recycling Center tried out a pilot recycling program among five apartment and condominium complexes that volunteered, and officials estimated that providing recycling services to their tenants would cost landlords $2.57 per unit. To me, this doesn’t seem like a big cost, especially considering how high rent is for most Iowa City apartments.

Obviously, really devoted recyclers can take their recycling to the four designated drop-off areas in Iowa City. And maybe, we as a society should strive to be less lazy and more devoted to things that matter. Unfortunately, however, I just don’t see this happening anytime soon. If we want recycling to become the norm, then we are first going to need to make it easier for people to do just that.