August 10, 2009
A Baltimore County resident says, “Single-stream is the way to go!”
by Alan Cohen
There are many wonderful things about living in BaltimoreCounty. I now live in Oella, a beautiful, historic hamlet across the PatapscoRiver from Ellicott City and surrounded by nature.
However, there’s one very important way (especially to eco-enthusiasts such as myself) in which BaltimoreCity has it all over the county that surrounds it. That’s the city’s fantastic, single-stream recycling program, which just was made even better by going to once-a-week collection. I recently had the opportunity to volunteer for the second year in a row, for a few hours at the City’s Cleaner Greener Baltimore booth at Artscape. There, I saw the wide range of recyclable items that can all be thrown in the same containers, with weekly pick-ups and unlimited recycling.
In contrast, the county still has dual-stream recycling. In case you lucky city-dwellers don’t remember this, under dual-stream, you have to put out paper items one week and plastic and metal the next, alternating weekly.
In addition, the county accepts a much smaller range of items for recycling than the city, and you have to put paper items in paper containers and plastic items in plastic containers or bags (which many of us are trying to use as little as possible, to boot).
Fortunately, the county is planning to switch to single-stream recycling sometime in the future, which will make it much easier for residents to recycle, and also bring us in line with most surrounding jurisdictions. But CharmCity residents, I really hope you appreciate, enjoy and – probably most importantly – make maximum use of your wonderful, single-stream, one-PLUS-ONE recycling system! It’s a great way to maximize participation, cut landfill use and your carbon footprint – and probably best of all, it’s sooo EASY! I really hope to join you in the cutting-edge, single-stream world as soon as possible (and in the meantime, will continue to feel at least a little envious when I think of your recycling program)!
Alan Cohen was member of the Baltimore City Sustainability Commission’s Energy and Air Working Group and is active with several local groups, including the Baltimore Climate Action Network, Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance and Green Networking Referral Group.
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