A new recycling program in Lodi that was intended to educate residents and help keep聽the city聽green is not sitting well with everyone. It鈥檚 called Recycling Right, a program rolled out by Waste Management and聽designed聽to reduce cross-contamination.
鈥淛ust recently, they have decided to start聽digging聽through everybody鈥檚 trash and saying you鈥檙e going to be fined if you are warned so many times,鈥� said Cara Fink, Lodi resident.
Under the program, residents can be fined almost $14 for contaminating their recycling bin with non-recyclables. Waste Management plans to hand out warnings for the first two offenses, hand out fines by the third violation and replace a person鈥檚 container by the fourth offense with a 96-gallon trash bin for the year 鈥� at the resident鈥檚 expense.
鈥淚 thought it was somewhat ridiculous and given that I鈥檝e seen聽the聽problem go on for many years, I think they should have been pretty much doing their job their whole time and they wouldn鈥檛 have this problem,鈥� said Fink.
Leaders with waste management say the program is needed because there are a lot of people who are not recycling the right way.
鈥淲hat we found is that, unfortunately, a lot of people put in a lot of things that shouldn鈥檛 be in a recycle bin. We see a lot of diapers, we see a lot of bowling balls, Barbie鈥檚, bags of charcoal, a lot of the hazardous waste as well,鈥� said Joe Cadelago, public sector manager with Waste Management.
They say about 50 percent of the material going in for recycling is non-recyclable items which can damage machines and slow the process down.
鈥淪o, what could happen is if a bowling ball goes through our system, a can paint or a hazardous waste goes through it, we have to stop all the machines,聽clean聽it all out, clean it up and make sure things are working correctly,鈥� he said.
City leaders say Recycle Right, is about teaching people聽the聽correct way to recycle, similar to the rules placed in Lodi 15 years ago and mailed out to residents every year.
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