Photo by blogancircle

Photo by blogancircle

The Washington Post was out with a stinky scoop this morning: Old trash cans and recycling bins picked up by the city weren’t recycled as promised.

Instead, about 5,300 cans were sent to a landfill with the Department of Public Works not offering an explanation as to why. (One possible reason: Old, abandoned trash cans were picked up filled with trash.)

This is just the latest issue with the citywide replacement of thousands of Supercans, trash cans and recycling bins. Below is a brief history of how we got to this place.

April 2011: Following a report on the poor state of trash cans in D.C., the Department of Public Works announced that residents would be charged for new 32-gallon trash carts and 32-gallon recycling carts, in addition to Supercans.

March 2013: Mayor Vince Gray included $2 million in the fiscal year 2014 budget for a $10 million, five-year plan to replace Supercans citywide. Recycling bins grew under the plan.

November 2013: Gray and Councilmembers Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Kenyan McDuffie held a press conference to announce the replacement. Distribution was scheduled to start in January.

December 2013: The Council unanimously rejected a plan to take $9 million from the city’s retiree health-care fund for the trash can plan.

January 2014: The Gray administration announced it would fund the program with “contingency cash.”

February 2014: New Supercan delivery began.

April 1, 2014: Delivery of the cans ramped up before primary election. The majority of the 210,000 new cans were delivered by the end of March, according to the City Paper.

May 9, 2014: Following numerous complaints to 311 and on social media, DPW announced a “blitz” to pickup all the unwanted trash and recycling cans across the city. The overtime cost the city $130,000. Per the City Paper piece, about 60,000 cans had already been picked up pre-blitz.

May 20, 2014: The Gray administration admitted some of the old cans were not recycled. We’re still waiting to hear why.

Filed Under: department of public works, dpw, supercans, trash cans,