PAYT - Cart Size for Recycling & Green Waste

Laura thank you for posting this question. I am also looking for feedback on cart size for our organics/compost program. We have an existing compost program with a 65 gallon cart. The program is 10 years old and we are now looking to add more carts and are looking at different cart sizes.
This past summer we had the opportunity to "pilot' a small group with a 32 gallon cart for townhouses and garden homes. Over the years, we have found that participation from garden homes was low. When we talked to homeowners many said they could not store the larger cart in their garage and were not allowed to have the cart outside. With the 32 gal cart we saw an increase of 30% participation in composting. 50% of the homes selected the smaller cart when given the choice. The majority of homeowners were 2 person seniors who stated that the 65 gallon cart was too difficult to store and much too large for their needs. For those that kept the larger cart, most were sharing it with a neighbour.
Now we are trying to decide what percentage of homes would use the smaller cart as we start to replace existing carts. We can assume that townhouses and garden homes will be candidates for the 32 gallon cart, but we are also witnessing requests for it from single detached homes as well.
I would appreciate any feedback on demand for the larger versus mid-sized green cart for organics.


Brenda MacCallum
Fundy Region Solid Waste Commission
Canada

The person below has done considerable research about PAYT in the United States. She presented in a USA Environmental Protection Agency webinar and I think she's a very good resource. If you google her name with pay as you throw, you should find some of her articles in the results.

Lisa A. Skumatz, Ph.D.
Skumatz Economic Research Associates, Inc.
1511 Third Avenue, Suite 1000
Seattle, Washington 98101
Voice: 206/624-8508
FAX: 206/624-2950
Email: skumatz @ serainc.com

I can offer circumstantial evidence from my area. Many municipalities in the Buffalo Niagara region of the US have been implementing cart-based programs for recycling. They often only offer the 65 gallon size to start, but some allow residents to switch to a different size later. This makes initial cart roll-out much easier. The municipalities that let residents know from the beginning that there will be opportunity to switch later tend to have less push-back from residents. Older people often have trouble handling the size of a 65 gallon cart and don't need that much capacity - it could take them a month to fill up a cart that size. On the other hand, I hear of families with kids at home that fill a 95 gallon cart every week, or at least more often than every other week which is how most municipalities in our region structure their programs.

Most of our area isn't using a PAYT system - I wish they did, but most just switched to carts for the recycling. If the muni is concerned about spending too much or storing too many different sizes, they should offer more flexibility for recycling to encourage that and not offer the largest size for trash to discourage that. The other thing we've done is keep the cart color for all the carts the same and just used different color lids. This makes inventory control much easier and saves money because when one household returns a 95 gallon trash cart they no longer need because thy are recycling so much it can easily become a recycling cart for another family that has more than average recycling.

Katy

Katy Duggan-Haas
Sustainability Program Coordinator
Modern Recycling
United States
www.moderncorporation.com