October 10, 2008
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Although Houston has temporarily diverted curbside recycling services in order to deal with the removal of Hurricane Ike debris, city Solid Waste Director Harry Hayes is appealing to citizens to temporarily use other avenues to keep paper and plastics from swelling weekly garbage collections.
Many residents have not realized that the streetside pickup of the contents of green recycling containers has temporarily ceased, resulting in piles of material remaining on road shoulders for weeks, sometimes blowing into streets and yards recently cleared of downed trees and branches. Private contractors and city crews are hard at work removing an estimated 7.5 million cubic yards of storm debris, totals that dwarf Tropical Storm Allison's 1 million cubic yards in 2001 and 3 million cubic yards left by Hurricane Alicia in 1983. As a result of the magnitude of the debris, it will be at least another month before home-recycling pickup resumes for 160,000 households in the city.
In the meantime, advises Hayes, ecologically minded residents should exercise extra initiative to dispose of their recyclables. They can take them to seven city dropoff sites, as well as H-E-B grocery stores. Details can be accessed at the city's website at www.houstontx.gov. Most elementary and middle schools have containers to accept paper and cardboard, providing a nearby location as well as revenue for neighborhood schools.
Hayes gives the debris pickup effort thus far an A+. "We have broken debris removal records and are averaging well over 200,000 cubic yards a day," says the director.
In a week, the crews collected more than the total amount of debris created by Allison's floodwaters.
Efforts to recycle the wood and vegetation downed by the storm have been boosted by the fact the city was preparing to do that even before Ike struck. Over the last two years, the city and the Living Earth company have been working together to set up recycling centers for tree limbs, brush, leaves and grass clippings. Living Earth is the largest recycler of vegetation in Texas, and touts its services as a process in which the landfill, the community and the environment all win.
When Ike flattened thousands of large trees across the city, the groundwork was laid to begin diverting some of the storm debris from landfills. A portion of the Ike debris will eventually be marketed under the brand name Living Earth Houston Mulch at area Lowe's stores beginning in November.
Although some residents have suggested that the city market some of the giant oak and pine trunks felled by the storm to lumber companies, Hayes says it's impractical to try to pluck them out of the gigantic stream of debris without delaying the overall effort.
"Our goal is to get Houston back to normal as quickly as possible," he explained, noting that some entrepreneurs have been collecting wood from road shoulders to sell as firewood or even fashion into tables and furniture.
HoustonChronicle.com
Back |
