Urban Jacksonville

The Jacksonville Community Council released it’s 2008 Quality of Life Progress Report this week.

Tracking both positive and negative trends, this report provides an ongoing analysis of the state of our region. The report includes over 100 indicators that reflect trends in nine external environments: education; economy; environment; social wellbeing; arts, culture, and recreation; health; government; transportation; and safety. The document serves as a roadmap for community improvement, telling us where we are, how far we’ve come and where we need to go.

Of particular interest to me are the environmental and transportation indicators.

Environmental

Red Flags were assigned to indicators measuring the health of the St. Johns River and its tributaries and to recycling activity. A positive note earning a Gold Star was a decrease in motor fuel use per person.

This is particularly concerning in light of my post last week on the City’s efforts to reduce recycling expenses city wide.

Transportation

Transportation indicators reflected moderately reduced miles of JTA bus service and decreased bus and Skyway ridership. Restructuring of JTA routes largely accounts for the reduction in miles of service and a reduction in Skyway ridership will not suprise anyone.

I anticipate skyway ridership will increase as more people move to the Southbank and the new King Street developments come online.

I know this is a very brief analysis, but tune into Urban Jacksonville Weekly this Tuesday for a more in depth analysis with Tony Allegretti, Jonathan Bennett and myself. We’ll be broadcasting live video on the Internet at 5:30pm on our Ustream Channel:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/urban-jacksonville-weekly

I learned from a co-worker that Jacksonville may halt recycling selected items. The economics of recycling just aren’t adding up for the city any more. An article from WJXT begins like this:

Recycled material may soon end up discarded in the dump because the new economy has dropped the price recycling companies pay the city for old newspapers, plastic bottles and cans. Recycling Firms Face Tough Times in Jacksonville

The article details how Jacksonville sells it’s recyclable materials to companies who flip those materials to buyers in other countries like China. China, in particular, has decreased it’s purchasing of recyclables, this is driving down the price cities can fetch for their bottle and cans.

We’ve reached a point where Jacksonville is paying more for the infrastructure to support recycling than it’s making, producing a net loss for recycling.

Since this story has come to light, certain puzzle pieces are fitting together for me. On the recycle day after Christmas I saw a normal garbage truck picking up recyclable materials. No sorting, just dumping into the truck. I chalked it up to stretched resources, figuring with all the Christmas garbage the city needed to free resources to collect all the garbage.

I was really witnessing the opening shot of the City’s effort to reduce recycling in favor of just throwing the stuff in a landfill.

Five Reasons Why The City Should Not Stop Recycling

1. Short term gain, long term loss: in the end we’ll have more junk in landfills, all to save a few bucks.
2. It’s bad public relations: these are the times when we should stay strong and show the country we’re a progressive city. Instead we’re shuttling a major indicator of a city’s devotion to eco-friendliness.
3. Recycling help’s curb water pollution: for a city who’s major asset is water, this sure is a kick in the groin to the river.
4. Disrespectful to your residents: at least I feel disrepected. I try hard to recycle as much stuff as possible, even though this city limits what you can recycle. Now my City is telling me I’m doing it all for nothing.
5. Bad for national image: trying to attract innovative talent from around the country just got a little more difficult. Would you want to relocate to a city that halted it’s recycling program?

The news story concludes with the reporter asking if Jacksonville will stop collecting recyclables? The answers is no, but if things get too bad, more recycled material will be dumped into landfills.

credit: clurr

I’m always debating about which things I can and can’t throw in my recycle bin. Sometimes, instead of looking it up, I just toss it in the garbage. I’m sure you do too. But no more! I’m making it easy to look up the COJ Recycling information so next time you have a question you can just ask Urban Jacksonville.

After I post this, anyone should be able to just search for recycle to find this info again.

• Plastic food, beverage, detergent bottles and jugs with narrow necks and screw-on tops that are labeled with a 1 or 2 (no tops or lids and no butter tubs or similar items)
• Glass bottles and jars (green, brown, and clear; no tops or lids)
• Metal & aluminum cans
• Newspapers & inserts
• Magazines, catalogs & telephone books
• Corrugated cardboard (flattened and cut in pieces 2′ by 3′ or smaller)

Tip: If you have too many items to fit in your blue bin, separate the items into brown paper bags.

COJ also provides these handy Recycling Do’s and Dont’s for Jacksonville that the scary people on the page are waiting to tell you about like:

• Don’t place plastic bags in recycling bins– return them to your local grocer.
• Don’t use plastic bags to hold your recyclables. Place all items in your blue bin and/or brown paper bags.

Also if you need a blue recycling bin you can get one by calling (904) 630-CITY (2489). Now you have no excuse for not knowing what to recycle. Does anyone know if downtown has a recyling program yet?