It was a simple question, really. "What does it take to improve the rate of recycling in Minnesota?"

Our Insight Now community really took off on this one. We heard about:
The need to buy recycled products as half the equation.

How we have maxed out on peer pressure as a means to get people to recycle (check out the comment about Kamikaze pilots here).

Making recycling into a community service works.

How laws only bully... and economics need to take centerstage in the recycling cause.

So we thought to throw this one out to sources in MPR's Public Insight Network and see what else we could learn. Here were some more perspectives...

Change approach or lower expectations

Ben Olson
Lives in Minneapolis and works as government relations director for the Minnesota Environmental Responsibility Network and contributes to a site advocating a recycling refund program

In cities around the state like Bemidji, curbside programs are beginning to disappear due to the strains from recent LGA cuts. Never-the-less, most of Minnesota continues to have curbside collection programs. The programs do well at collecting household recyclable items--but are missing much of what's consumed outside the home, like beverage containers.

In 2007, (the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency) convened a recycling roundtable to discuss the issue of beverage container recycling. The result was the establishment of a goal to recycle 80% by 2012.

Minnesota currently recycles only 35% of its beverage containers. States with a recycling refund have much higher recycling rates then we do. For example, Michigan recycles 95% of beverage containers. The Minnesota Recycling Refund Act would encourage recycling, reduce litter, and decrease recyclables in landfills. It would also help fund curbside programs, create green jobs, and provide great fundraising opportunities for civic organizations.

We need to either dramatically change the approach we take to recycling or embrace the status quo and lower our expectations.

Neighbors need to be the influence

Bonnie Creason
A Minneapolis resident who purchases arts services for a living.

Neighbors should not only (recycle) but influence others who do not. I am the block captain for my neighborhood. When I do trash pickups in the community, I sort everything and put it out with my own recycling. This is not an easy or nice job, but I do it because it's important and right.

Businesses should be required to recycle with incentives or tax breaks. Businesses should also use recycled content and post-consumer waste and support vendors who do the same.

Just as the economic bust, high gas prices and the oil spill have been major catastrophe's that have altered peoples' opinions and habits, it will also take major forces to implement change in the current system. Americans have been living fat, lazy, thoughtless lives for way too long. It's time to force a change for the better of all. Minnesota is a major green and progressive leader in this country - let's keep up the good example and keep thinking ahead.

Reluctantly looking at regulation

Steve Burdette
An Apple Valley resident who works as a software designer for a large health insurer.

I usually have three times as much recycling as I do garbage. I get no incentives from the garbage company for not putting out the trashbin, and they encourage waste because the savings to go from a 96 gallon bin to a 48 gallon bin are only $4 a month. They make recycling difficult by not taking all plastics, placing restrictions on glass, and many other recyclable materials. If we want people to recycle more, the system should incent it, not discourage it.

I loathe regulation, but there in no incentive for garbage haulers to reduce garbage collected. If anything, it is a conflict of interest, much like it is to ask oil companies to stop producing oil. We need to regulate prices and have incentives such as tax breaks or credits of some kind for recycling. Penalties for excessive garbage should exist, although some kind of exemption must be made for large projects such as home remodeling. Funding intermediate businesses that sort "trash" from "recyclable" materials of all kinds would help post-consumer as well.

Recycling food

Kate Mudge
A St. Paul resident who works at a nonprofit organization - Second Harvest Heartland
St. paul MN 55104 United States
Response Date : Wednesday, July 14, 2010

I work at a nonprofit in a sector called "food rescue". In essence, we "recycle" edible (but unsellable) food from local and national retailers. We are collecting millions of pounds of excellent, nutritious food every year and distributing it to food shelves, essentially creating a new distribution system for food that would otherwise end up in landfills and/or incinerators.

In this particular instance, I believe that businesses have every reason to participate- it's free, it reduces their trash costs, it has a social benefit, an environmental benefit, increases employee and customer morale.

And of course, the public benefits from food shelves that have an increased selection of fresh, nutritious food (meat, dairy, and fresh vegetables). Unfortunately this program doesn't get much press.

Give people a financial carrot

Mark Sather
He works as the city manager for White Bear Lake

Give the households with high rates of participation a financial incentive.

The City of White Bear Lake administers a city-wide master contract for collection and processing solid waste from residential property and the service includes collecting and processing recyclables.

The service is paid for entirely with revenue from use fees and the fees are volume based, therefore, the more you recycle the lower the volume of refuse you place out for collection and the less you pay for the service. Residents can save almost $75 per year by recycling.

It works well with over 80 percent regular participation. Free recycling bin, same-day collection (same day as trash collection) and other incentives have helped to encourage participation.

Short InTakes

Cari Lucas of Nisswa
I do not advocate to improve recycling rates. People should voluntarily decide on their own to participate in recycling.

Ben Lund of Rochester
Make (recycling) convenient - place recycling bins near trash bins in public spaces. Resist mandates, they usually just drive up costs.

Maggie Mattacola, spokesperson for Recycling Association of Minnesota
The last frontier of recycling is "away from home" recycling ... having recycling programs when people are at events, in public spaces, at businesses.

It's easy to see the future but how do we get from here to there faster is the real question. Garbage trucks will dump in the front of the facility and out from the back will come metal ingots, fertilizers, blocks of plastic and other reusable materials. It's all ready been done to some degree. A proposal by one Oklahoma Professor was to vaporize the refuse, breaking it down to it's basic elements. Anything we are doing now is temporary. I would hate to wait until our garbage becomes valuable enough before private enterprise to invest. As much as I detest Government intervetion this is a very big mulitiple problem. I do not like subsidizing but perhaps grants could be offered as incentives to start such business'.

Some people are natural care-givers. They do not need a reason to recycle because it is the right thing to do. Others will recycle if it is convenient to do so. Those who remain will not bother recycling unless there is a strong incentive for them to do so. This usually boils down to money. If the value of their recyclables is more important than their garbage, they might recycle. The last group wants to make a statement in protest. These people will dump trash on roadside ditches, litter public places, and deface other people's property. Recycling is the farthest thing on their minds. They don't even dispose of their garbage properly. From my perspective, no single remedy solves the problem.

That's it in a nutshell Roger.

It seems that Minnesota has tried to expand curbside recycling for decades, and that is great. I have lived in Minneapolis and St. Paul and happily sorted my paper from my containers, and in a suburb with single-stream recycling. The recycling canister was the same size as the garbage canister, yet it was always full first and was only picked up every other week (as opposed to the garbage every week.)

Either way, it has been easy for me to recycle. The problem is that only 35% of us are recycling beverage containers. Think of all of that aluminum, plastic, and glass taking up the landfill space! Recycling those materials only saves money, resources, energy, and landfill space.

I think Steve and Ben are right - a new approach may be necessary. Sure, we can be neighborly about reminding others but how many more decades of reminders will it take for us to reach a 95% recycling rate??

We can't wait that long!

You are in that first group Roger spoke of, the Natural Care Givers. What do you propose to do about the other two groups? You can lead a horse to water...

Sources in our Public Insight Network continue to share their thoughts on recycling. Leaning on business and using a beverage container law are thoughts given below.

Iowa beverage law shows the way

Kathleen Laurila
A nonprofit administrator living in Crystal. who also had lived for 35 years in Iowa

After Oregon passed "the bottle bill" in the 1970s, Iowa jumped on the bandwagon and passed a law that put 5¢ on every beverage bottle. But instead of having a curb pick-up one would take their bottles back to the grocery store (the stores didn't care much for this, of course) and get your nickel back. The stores then took them to the re-cycling center.

One other advantage of this law was that people wanting to pick up some honest change would go around the streets and highways and pick up any bottles that had been tossed. It worked very well -- and still does.

A bigger role for business

Trisha Cook
A St. Paul resident who does education and training coordination for a statewide nonprofit organization.

Business currently does not have a big enough role or incentive to be leaders in recycling. There is nothing more discouraging than going to a hotel with no recycling. Gross. Room after room with no recycling multiplied by the number of guests and number of stays - it's alarming to think of what is getting tossed out instead of recycled.

I go out of my way to stay in hotels that are "green" or recycle. I also, when feasible, take my recycling with me. This is a great way to start conversations with strangers, I usually get asked lots of questions when strangers or hotel staff see me toting away cans and bottles.

Bringing home a bag of recycling from work

Mary Weimholt
Lives in Champlin and works in an office doing computer support

I am a big fan of advertising and education and fees/fines might do the trick, but if you want me to tell you my first choice, I have to pick businesses, because they have the biggest opportunity to make a difference.

Businesses collect or create the majority of our recyclable materials. They need to be invested in how we handle our trash. My employer has recycling bins all over the building, but people still throw it in their trash cans under their desks.

It's amazing what one team of 30 people in my workplace contribute to the recycling that I do each week. I gather 5-10 yogurt containers, 3-4 microwave plastic dishes, 3-5 coffee cup lids, 3-4 plastic bags, etc, along with the regular plastic bottles and cans. I fill a paper bag of recycling every day! If we order take out, some times I take home two bags.

Considering how many recyclable containers employees use in one eight-hour day, starting with businesses would be a smart choice.

I see nothing new here.

I remember in the very early sixties the deposit on beverage bottles. That't how us kids used to get money to buy candy. Our street people are always hunting for aluminum cans. Severe fines have not stopped people from littering.

In our work place we all ready have seperate containers for plastic and aluminum as well as most of our public places including gas stations. My company claims to be a zero refuse maker and they are very close.

Advertising is everywhere. Our community has a very strong recycling system. Volunteers periodically clean the ditches in spite of a stiff fine for littering. There is a project around here to clean up around the river. The local electric company burns trash with the use of some very high tech scrubbers. Outside of shooting violators what more can conscientious people do?

Eleven other states have the bottle deposit on beverage containers. Ben's website seems to have all of the information there to support the idea of having one in Minnesota.

Gerald, you remember the program, but we currently don't have one. What is the hold up to a 10 cent refund on bottles and cans in this state? Even as an adult, I'd love to redeem my bottles for candy.

I question the effectiveness of a deposit. I lived in Michigan for two years that had a 5 cent deposit on cans. Littering was more of a problem there than here in Minnesota. In addition beverages in Michigan were more expensive, it is costly to turn stores into recycling centers. Even a small 10 x 10 foot area will cost a retailer anywhere from 350 to 1,000 dollars a month.

Michigan with a 10 cent deposit recycles 95% of it's beverage containers. That sounds pretty effective to me!

At my local Target and Rainbow stores now, there are currently mini recycling centers. I can take back my plastic or paper bags, ink cartridges, and a host of other products (cans, bottles) to be recycled when I go in to shop. There is no extra trip, Rainbow knows I will need groceries again.

Retail centers are already doing similar programs for their customers, and I don't believe it was a government mandate or program that made them do so. I would be interested to see how much is already being recycled because of these efforts. If people are using their drop offs now (that the stores set up voluntarily), imagine how many more would use if there was a financial incentive to do so.

And then all of that junk actually gets recycled.

Why did the deposit have to go up? Yes it can be effective, but at what cost? I am happy to hear that retailers are being proactive but it makes me suspicious. Are they getting some kind of huge tax break? Pay no mind to my cynicism, that's what the devil pays me for LOL.

Less is more.

Plastic will be going out eventually and I do believe in bio-regionalism. Which is "Local Grown". Then glass or some other product would make sense. so that is my hope.

Less is more. Food items which are transported are not as nutricious as products which are locally grown. So it makes dual sense. We shouldn't be transporting milk from those not so happy cows in California. Herds of over 5000 that never see the out of doors....it would also reduce our carbon foot print.

Deposit will keep the items off the streets and out of the landfills but there are larger costs to consider.

Thank You.

I do like the Target & Rainbow foods providing a recycling place.