Recycle y’all!

I’m grateful to have been featured in the Atlanta Journal Constitution over the weekend.

“As an avid recycler, Dozier said he would want to see more transparency about the costs of recycling before being convinced of any need to charge residents for contamination. “There has to be a very deliberate process that is very communication driven and resident driven and is very education focused. You don’t want to turn people off,” he said.”

My larger point here is that while fines have their place, using them aggressively can discourage people from bothering to recycle in the first place. *points to head* You can’t get fined for mixing in the wrong materials in with your recycling if you don’t recycle at all.

Fines disproportionately impact black, brown, and poor people. If you want to improve recycling standards, then education is a much more effective tool than forcing punitive measures onto the folks living in the margins.