Baltimore has launched one of the most ambitious programs in Maryland and the nation to collect recyclable paper at the front curb in every neighborhood. But the city trucks rolling past many a Baltimore row house find only a few lonely bundles.
The problem? City Hall has kept recycling a secret.
"They have this great citywide service that no one knows about," said Dan Jerrems, head of the Maryland Recycling Coalition, a citizens group.
The percentage of residential trash being recycled is still small -- about 2 percent overall, although the proportion rises to 30 percent in some neighborhoods.
Right now in every neighborhood in Baltimore, the city will pick up almost any kind of paper that enters the average house: old newspapers, telephone books, cardboard, junk mail, catalogs, books, computer paper and cereal boxes without the liner to name a few.
And beginning in January, the city will phase in a program of collecting glass, plastic, aluminum, and tin cans.
Pushed by a corps of avid volunteer recyclers, Baltimore has been transformed in 18 months from a city with practically no recycling to a city that will offer everything but composting of green beans and chicken bones by this spring -- and at a savings to taxpayers.
Some cities go at it slowly, prodding their citizens with educational programs for schoolchildren, billboard announcements and promotions on radio and television.
The first information many Baltimore residents got about recycling was a confusing sheet of paper last summer that didn't reach everyone. This week, City Councilman Wilbur E. "Bill" Cunningham introduced a strongly worded resolution that complained about the lack of public education and overall management of the recycling program.
"One of my concerns is this dramatic leapfrog into recycling," said 3rd District Councilman Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III.
"We have a lot more education and promotion to do."
City officials tried to make the brochure clearer, but they blundered once again by having some of them passed out
shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday, when trash and recyclables aren't collected.
Other public education efforts under way include hiring an advertising firm, lining up volunteers in each neighborhood to pass out information and teaching city schoolchildren to recycle, said George G. Balog, chief of the Division of Solid Waste.
