Community Impact
By Taylor Jackson Buchanan and Sally Grace Holtgrieve

AUSTIN – Only six of 26 parks managed by Travis County have recycling receptacles, and many of those bins are dated and in need of replacement, said Shaun Auckland, conservation coordinator for the county.

“Implementing a robust recycling program and educating the public on what can and can’t be recycled is substantial for us to be able to reach our 90% zero-waste goal,” Auckland said.

The county joined the city of Austin in 2014 with the goal of diverting at least 90% of discarded materials from landfills by 2040. To reach this goal Travis County created a Green Team that has helped increase the diversion rate of the waste produced by the county from 5% to 34%, Auckland said. The county also purchased recycling and trash containers for public spaces at county facilities in 2016.

However, nearly 3 out of every 4 county-maintained parks do not provide recycling options. With 500,000 annual visitors to parks in the western part of the county alone, few options exist to recycle materials at the parks, said Timothy Speyrer, Travis County Parks district manager.

Resident Joan Quenan said it is difficult to recycle in many county parks.

“I usually have to take my stuff home to recycle it, which most people won’t bother doing,” said Quenan, who often utilizes hiking trails at several county parks. “We should be teaching people how to recycle by having it readily available in the parks.”

Rethinking recycling

Public access to recycling services sends the message that recycling is something one should always do, said Andrew Dobbs, Texas Campaign for the Environment Central Texas program director and legislative director.

“It takes [recycling]from this luxury process or something that’s a nice thing to do to a basic service done because it’s the responsible thing to do,” Dobbs said. “It shouldn’t be a moral behavior or cultural touchstone. Recycling is the basic way of handling materials that still have valuable life left in them.”

Recycling can also have a positive impact on the economy, according to a 2015 study done by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. During each stage of the process, from collection to manufacturing, economic activity is generated in the form of employment and workers’ wages, the report states.

However, when a person goes to a government facility—whether a park, office building or other center for services—and recycling receptacles are not available, this reinforces the idea that throwing materials into a landfill is an appropriate step to take, when in actuality it is a waste of energy and resources, Dobbs said.

As someone who works with government entities on environmental issues, Dobbs said it did not surprise him that only 23% of the county’s parks have recycling. An unfortunate reality in Texas is that landfill disposal of waste is cheaper and easier than recycling, which has not been a priority for waste management, Dobbs said.

“It’s a long-term struggle,” he said. “But the county is looking to change and clearly asking the right questions.”

Addressing the issue

As a first step in providing more recycling options, the county is collecting data using a geographic information system, or GIS, application. The “Collector” app keeps track of containers and production of waste at parks. To date 13 county parks are mapped, Speyrer said.

“We are using the GIS information to look at how many trash cans and recycling receptacles are in the park, if we’re missing certain areas and if we have enough receptacles,” Speyrer said. “From that data, we will develop a waste management plan to address this moving forward.”

Auckland said county staff will start the process of creating the solid-waste management plan in January. The plan will outline anticipated costs and provide a suggested timeline to expand recycling services, remove substandard containers, and implement uniform signage to designate waste and recycling receptacles. Improving recycling services and waste management across all the county-maintained parks will likely happen in phases, she said.

Taking inventory is just one element of the conversation. The county is also exploring different types of containers for proper disposal of both trash and recyclables.

“It’s not just a matter of going out and buying a Rubbermaid trash can,” Speyrer said. “These durable, weather-resistant containers are not cheap. We are piloting a few different types to determine what is the most durable and works the best.”

In flood-prone locations concrete containers are less likely to be whisked away in floodwaters, Auckland said. For sports complexes and other parks with flat, open fields, the county is researching sturdy but easily-relocated bins. Wooded parks need containers that can prevent animals from getting inside the bins, she said.

The county has ordered several new models of “twin bin” containers that pair recycling on one side and trash on the other. This side-by-side pairing promotes proper placement of both waste and recyclables and reduces potential misplacement of the different materials, Speyrer said.

“We are aware of human nature,” he said. “It has to be easy to recycle, or people won’t do it.”

Consistent, uniform signage in English and Spanish that includes clear illustrations is another aim of the county’s recycling effort. Without clearly depicting which materials can and cannot be diverted from the landfill, recycling efforts could still fall short, Auckland said.

“There has to be a substantial amount of education for the public and [parks]staff in order to have successful buy-in,” she said.

One park alone can have 100 or more units, Speyrer said. Twin bins can range from $642 to upwards of $1,000 each. This adds up quickly when implementing a new program in 26 public parks.

Why recycle?

Resident David Mack Endres said it would be great for the county to provide more recycling containers in the parks, but he doubted the recycle stream would be very clean.

“Many people disregard the need to segregate [recyclables],” he said. “If [the county]could provide true single-stream recycling for everything but organic waste, it might be useful.”

Harry Cleaver, an associate professor of economics at The University of Texas at Austin, said he wondered why so few parks offered recycling bins.

“If containers can be made available to every resident, why not to the parks?” Cleaver said.

Determining how to prioritize recycling in county parks depends on where funds would come from, he said, adding he wondered if new taxes would be levied to fund recycling efforts.

Dobbs said it is important to remember when throwing trash away, there is actually no such place as away.

“When trash is thrown away, it is actually being sent to someone’s neighborhood,” Dobbs said. “A lot of our landfill stuff goes to low-income communities— places where people are vulnerable to the harmful impacts of waste.”

With landfills come associated odor, noise, vermin and other issues, Dobbs said.

“It’s important we minimize what we discard,” he said. “If we recycled everything, we wouldn’t need the landfills.”

Politifact
By W. Gardner Selby
Original article here

Despite’s Austin’s “zero-waste” commitment, an advocacy group says that nearly every city park lacks recycling. We wondered about that declaration by the Texas Campaign for the Environment, which describes itself as the state’s largest environmental group organizing support through door-to-door canvassing.

An April 2018 handout from the group notes that the city adopted a zero-waste commitment in 2011 requiring businesses and landlords to provide recycling. The city has a goal of reducing trash sent to landfills by 90 percent by 2040.

“Unfortunately,” the TCE handout says, the “zero-waste” requirement “does not apply to city government operations” and parks rank among big missed opportunities. “As many as 293 out of 300 parks have no recycling, including almost every neighborhood park,” the handout says.

There’s also good news, the handout says, in that the city has launched recycling in every recreation and cultural center and in most of Austin’s biggest parks.

Still, 293 of 300 parks, including nearly every neighborhood park, have no recycling?

By email, Andrew Dobbs, the group’s Central Texas program director, said he based his statement on an April 2018 city staff presentation to Austin’s Parks and Recreation Board.

A slide in the presentation says the city has 300 parks. Two subsequent slides say a pilot program has introduced recycling to Zilker, Town Lake, Walnut Creek, Bull Creek and Ramsay parks plus Walsh Boat Landing. Other slides say recycling also has been added to more than five city swimming pools, five of six city golf courses and two softball complexes.

Dobbs told us the campaign knows of one other park with recycling bins thanks to a neighborhood association. The group’s handout, Dobbs said, says “as many as 293 out of 300” parks have no recycling “because we aren’t 100% certain if other parks might have recycling added on an ad hoc basis.”

Records show Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department made the recycling presentation to two city boards.

By phone, we separately confirmed TCE’s count of parks without recycling from Charles Vaclavik, a parks department official, who told us that plans are in motion next to expand recycling mostly along the south side of Lady Bird Lake through Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Park.

Vaclavik said Austin’s parks-with-recycling count would be higher if the department had started its pilot recycling program in 2017 by concentrating on small neighborhood parks rather than installing recycling bins in large “metropolitan” parks the city’s jewel, 351-acre Zilker Park.

“We concentrated (instead) on the activity centers that have the most people,” Vaclavik said, seeking a “bigger bang for the buck.” To date, he said, the recycling pilot has diverted about 35 percent of materials previously destined to move from trash cans to a landfill.

Another factor: The city has yet to budget for recycling in its parks. Liana Kallivoka, the department’s assistant director, told the city’s Zero Waste Advisory Commission at its April 11, 2018, meeting that department officials were drafting a request for $250,000 in recycling-specific funding in the next city budget.

If approved by the Austin City Council, Kallivoka said, the money would fund a program coordinator and hundreds of pairs of waste-recycling receptacles with tops, which run $1,100 each, to follow on 150 pairs already installed in park facilities and outdoors. Shelley Parks, a city spokeswoman, told us by phone that the cost of the installed bins was covered largely by donors including the Austin Parks Foundation, the Trail Foundation, neighborhood associations and the office of City Council Member Alison Alter, who represents District 10.

Generally, Kallivoka told the commission, the department’s goal is to extend recycling to all parks and facilities in three phases wrapping up with the addition of recycling to neighborhood parks.

Commission members approved a resolution calling for the city to create a Parks & Recreation Recycling Task Force. The resolution says, in part, that “approximately 4 of 300 City of Austin parks and 14 of 51 City of Austin aquatic facilities currently provide recycling opportunities.” Austin’s Parks and Recreation Board voted to urge creation of the same task force at its April 24, 2018, meeting.

Dobbs also spoke to the commission, saying: “The good news is that we’re at a point where everybody wants to do this.”

Our ruling

TCE’s handout says that most of Austin’s biggest parks have recycling though as “many as 293 out of 300” Austin city “parks have no recycling, including almost every neighborhood park.”

City figures support this analysis. The city hasn’t funded a parks recycling program.

We rate the statement True.

TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.

About this statement:
Published: Friday, June 8th, 2018 at 4:27 p.m.
Researched by: W. Gardner Selby
Edited by: John Bridges
Subjects: City Budget, City Government, Environment, Recreation

Sources:
Handout, Texas Campaign for the Environment, April 2018 (document received by email from Andrew Dobbs, Central Texas program director, legislative director, Texas Campaign for the Environment, May 23, 2018)

Emails, Andrew Dobbs, Central Texas program director, legislative director, Texas Campaign for the Environment, May 23 and June 5, 2018

Phone interviews, Charles Vaclavik, manager, operations and maintenance, City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department, May 30 and June 5, 2018

Video, “Consideration of new resolution: Recycling and Composting in Parks – Discussion/Action on the implementation of recycling and composting at City of Austin Parks and Recreation Facilities,” City of Austin, Zero Waste Advisory Commission, April 11, 2018

Resolution recommending Austin City Council action to expand recycling and waste diversion to all Austin parks and City of Austin recreation facilities, approved by Zero Waste Advisory Commission, April 11, 2018

Resolution recommending Austin City Council action to expand recycling and waste diversion to all Austin parks and City of Austin recreation facilities, approved by Parks and Recreation Board, April 24, 2018

Phone interview, Shelley Parks, acting manager, Marketing and Communications Unit, Austin Parks and Recreation Department, June 8, 2018

Austin Monitor
by Jessi  Devenyns

In every Austin home, there is the option to trash your waste or recycle it (many even have a composting option available). So why aren’t Austinites given the same opportunity at the city of Austin’s parks and recreational facilities?

At the April 11 meeting of the Zero Waste Advisory Commission, Liana Kallivoka, the assistant director of the Parks and Recreation Department, provided an answer to this question. “There is an undeniable financial block for the implementation,” she explained.

“At the rate we’re going, we’re going to be in the 2020s without a full implementation of recycling,” said Commissioner Kaiba White, who proposed a resolution to recommend that in 2019 City Council fund the initiative to expand the recycling program in city of Austin parks and recreational facilities. The resolution was passed unanimously.

The city’s Universal Recycling Ordinance states that “all commercial (including City) properties in Austin are required to have recycling.” However, open spaces, including public parks, are not included in the current ordinance.

That is not to say that the city doesn’t recycle. Currently, recycling is available at administrative offices, recreation centers, some pools, museums and cultural centers, and special events at parks. However, Parks and Recreation wants a comprehensive program in all its outdoor facilities, and to do so it has partnered with Austin Resource Recovery.

Commissioner Joshua Blaine commended the department’s efforts to go above and beyond. “Recycling in parks is not explicitly included in the Universal Recycling Ordinance, and yet you’re making efforts to do so anyway,” he said. He suggested that perhaps amending the ordinance to include these facilities would “help with budget concerns.”

Another suggestion to offset costs came from Commissioner Amanda Masino, who proposed repurposing the proceeds that Parks and Recreation receives from festivals and events that are held on city spaces to fund the expansion of recycling efforts. The department receives several dollars from each ticket sold at public festivals.

Andrew Dobbs from the Texas Campaign for the Environment noted that another source of funding could come directly from Council members. Council Member Alison Alter provided funding for recycling in her District 10 parks.

Kallivoka explained that the department needs $250,000 to roll out a three-phase recycling implementation in city parkland. Each pair of trash-recycling bins costs $1,100 to purchase and install, and there are 2,500 trash-only receptacles to replace in city parks.

“I believe we are a creative, innovative community, and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel on this,” said Chair Gerry Acuna. He proposed involving private businesses in the initiative. “Let them have some ownership in this. It could provide a lot of funding,” he said.

Regardless of how Council chooses to do it, commissioners agreed that Parks and Recreation is going to require a significant addition of funding for this initiative.

Dobbs noted, “The good news is that we’re at a point where everyone wants to do this.”