Springfield has approved a pilot curbside recycling program for 300 households, splitting the cost with Robertson County to聽determine whether the idea will work citywide. Robertson County and Green Village Recycling addressed the Board of Mayor and Aldermen earlier this month to request reconsideration of the program, which had failed to pass at October鈥檚 board meeting.
County Commissioner and solid waste committee member聽Don Eden and Green Village Recycling representative聽Jason DiStefano presented their plan for the project. 鈥淰ery simply, we are here from the solid waste commission committee to encourage you 鈥� to do this pilot project of recycling,鈥� Eden said. 鈥淲e want to encourage you enough that we we鈥檙e willing to pay for half of it. Our goal is to reduce the amount of garbage that is hauled and transferred to the landfill.鈥�
Green Village provides recycling services to seven counties in Middle Tennessee, DiStefano said. Over the past 10 years, they have found聽an epidemic problem with waste, he said, and as the population grows, the waste problem will聽grow, too.
The curbside recycling pilot program will provide 300 households, about 5 percent of Springfield鈥檚 population, with collection carts to see if free recycling will result in positive diversion rates, DiStefano said. The solid waste committee and Green Village have already chosen the test market.
鈥淚t is a six-month pilot. The objective is to measure the diversion rate of waste through recycling,鈥� he said.
For over two years, Green Village has been providing recycling services to about 60 to 70 customers in Springfield and would like to see those numbers grow, DiStefano said.
鈥淚 think this is a really good opportunity to get some really good data,鈥� City Manager Paul Nutting said. He predicted that the state will require some sort of recycling program in the future.
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