An audit of Pittsburgh’s recycling program found that a shortage of city refuse workers often delays curbside recycling pickup, and the problem is exacerbated by a lack of public knowledge about what to do when streets get skipped.
The City Controller’s office released the findings of the audit Tuesday. In a statement, City Controller Michael Lamb said the issues in the city recycling division mirror problems in other departments.
“Staffing continues to be a challenge for the city, and the recycling division is no exception,” said Lamb. “Recycling pickup is one of the most visible city services, and we must continue to invest in the people who provide this service to residents day in and day out.”
The audit compiled data from 2020 and 2021 and found that, on average, the city had an insufficient number of refuse and recycling workers daily to staff every route. When the Environmental Services Department is short a garbage collection worker, it pulls staff from the recycling program to fill that gap. But that practice routinely resulted in missed recycling routes, the audit showed.
Lamb argued the Department of Public Works — which includes Environmental Services — should evaluate pay rates for waste-removal workers and ensure “that pay rates remain competitive” to improve retention rates. He recommended that the city complete an analysis to determine if Environmental Services staffing should be expanded in the next budget year.
Though the city often makes up a missed recycling route as soon as the next day, many residents don’t know that is the case, Lamb said.
“It doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but it is because what that does is that generates all kind of calls into [the 311 Response Center], and additional work for everybody else,” he said.
The audit found that missed recycling complaints accounted for the overwhelming majority of 311 calls pertaining to Environmental Services in 2020 and 2021. All but 20 of the city’s 90 neighborhoods saw an increase in calls about missed recycling collections.
Bloomfield, Squirrel Hill South, Central Lawrenceville, Brookline, Beechview, Brighton Heights, Morningside, and Shadyside consistently ranked among the neighborhoods with the highest numbers of reports about missed recycling calls.
Another problem with missed recycling, according to Lamb, is more litter. If garbage sits out uncollected for 24 to 48 hours, even a small amount of wind could blow “garbage all over the place,” he said.
“You’re just additionally contributing to what is a very significant litter problem across the city," he added. “You can see that we’re having a real struggle right now, keeping our streets clean."
In addition to retaining and potentially increasing staff, the city should embark on a public education campaign to help residents understand how to make better use of the city’s curbside program, Lamb suggested.
“Any program like this … really depends on education and outreach,” he said. “And increasing participation so that we can divert more away from landfill[s] to have a successful program.”
Another way to increase recycling, Lamb maintained, is to punish property owners who blatantly disregard recycling. The city can enforce program participation by issuing a “failure-to-recycle” citation to a homeowner or business owner — something it didn’t do once in 2021, according to the audit.
For example, if a homeowner sets out a bag full of aluminum cans during a week when recycling won’t be picked up, the city could cite the homeowner. But resuming citations now without a period of warning first wouldn’t be effective, Lamb added.
“We haven't done a good enough job of communicating to our citizenry what the requirements are,” he said. Instead, he suggested that enforcement should resume after a comprehensive education campaign.
The audit also noted that the recycling rate at buildings owned by the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh is surprisingly low, Lamb said. Only five of 16 HACP communities recycle. The controller recommended that the city include a recycling requirement in future agreements with the HACP.
Lamb’s office also found that the city doesn’t track how well the Pittsburgh Public Schools system recycles. He recommended that the recycling division monitor recycling performance and encourage underperforming schools to recycle.
“It’s one of those things that you can educate kids about,” Lamb said. “They’re not really doing the level of recycling that they should. And that's really incumbent on the city that they do a better job of communicating, educating and enforcing the recycling rules.”
Despite the city’s struggles, Lamb found that 85% of recycling-bound material collected at curbside is processed by the city’s recycling partner, Recycle Source. About 15% of collections included non-recyclable materials or residue.
One way the city can improve upon these figures is to put less glass into the single-stream curbside program, Lamb said. Glass is more expensive to process, he said, and when it breaks, it can contaminate and decrease the worth of other materials on the market.
Lamb called on the city to increase the number of glass-only, drop-off locations to encourage residents to recycle glass separately.
“We’re not making the recommendation that it shouldn't be put in with the other stuff,” he said. “But for now, I think there's got to be a real effort behind letting people know where the glass drop-off sites are and increasing the number of them to make them more convenient.”
