Photo by blogancircle

Photo by blogancircle

With the distribution of thousands of new trash and recycling cans to every city resident not going exactly as planned, news yesterday that some of these of these cans were ending up in the trash — instead of being recycled — was the rotten cherry on top of the stinky debacle. “I’m not happy about how this has gone,” Mayor Vince Gray said this morning.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works says the 5,300 cans taken in trash trucks during the removal “blitz” went to a Virginia facility that turns waste to energy, not a landfill. Those cans represent seven percent of the 71,000 cans removed since February, when distribution of new cans began. This includes 16,000 taken during the blitz.

Already, 26,533 containers have been recycled through the manufacturer.

“We are continuing to remove cans this week and we anticipate doing so through the foreseeable future since residents may indicate they want a can removed at any time,” spokeswoman Linda Grant said in an email.”Our blitz is being conducted with the primary goal of swift removal of cans because some alleys had become very congested with wanted and unwanted cans. Under these circumstances, where safe movement was compromised, the benefit of improving safety exceeded the cost of not recycling 7 percent of what we removed.”

Of course, that doesn’t explain why some residents say their wanted cans were taken. Andrew Brady said he and his husband Ben Fishel’s cans were taken “full of trash during our regular trash collection day.”

Filed Under: dpw, trash cans,