DSWA Going Single Stream

The Community News reports that the Delaware Solid Waste Authority (DSWA) is switching over to single stream recycling:

With Delaware Solid Waste Authority's (DSWA) new “single-stream” recycling customers put all their recyclables – newspapers, magazines, phonebooks, junk mail, corrugated cardboard, chipboard, plastic grocery bags, narrow neck plastic bottles, steel, aluminum and glass – into a single 65-gallon rolling bin provided by DSWA, for weekly curbside pickup.
DSWA began changing to the new program in October. It will replace the current system of multiple bags and bins countywide by December and for all of its 6,000 Delaware customers next Spring.

I had reported in August that the DSWA was rethinking the way it handles recycling. The Community News reporter, Andrea Miller, called me last week to discuss the economics of recycling:

Single-stream recycling makes sense in a lot of ways – from ease of customer use to environmental benefits, but to really make a case for it, you have to show it makes good economic sense, according to Tom Noyes.
Noyes, a Trolley Square resident who has a background in finance and public policy, has been interested in environmental issues for years, so when some friends were named to a citizen task force on statewide recycling last year, he offered to do some economic modeling for them.

While the numbers have changed somewhat, the fundamentals of the analysis are still sound. You can read a summary of the analysis here.