Recycle Here! takes in more than 350 tons of recyclables in first year

After one year of Recycle Here!, the number of Detroit residents recycling per week has grown from the wee range of 45 to 60 to anywhere from 200 upwards to 500.

At the main Recycle Here! drop-off facility on Holden, which is open two days a week, 9,073 participants dropped off 618,746 pounds of recyclables in 2007. The four mobile facilities — located in Rosedale, Corktown, Creekside and Farwell — netted another 111,125 pounds from 1,804 participants.

John Francis of Capital Waste, one of Recycle Here!'s partner companies, is hopeful that the program's continued growth will help convince city officials to expand it.

"We're hoping that this morphs into targeted curbside recycling," he says. "It is impossible to start citywide -- we'd have to target certain areas first," he says. "Then that would grow, hopefully, to the whole city -- or even half, or three-quarters. We're hoping this is the nucleus for that."

The zip codes of recyclers are collected in order to ascertain what neighborhoods would be most likely to use such a service. So far, records indicate that New Center, Eastern Market, Corktown, Grandmont-Rosedale, Southwest Detroit and Midtown are leading the recycling revolution in Detroit.

Recycle Here! is also looking into a second permanent drop-off site and a key-card reward system that would equate drop-off poundage with points redeemable at local merchants.

Recyclables can be dropped off at 1331 Holden, Recycle Here!'s main facility, Weds. from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and Sat. from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. A list of accepted materials can be found here.

The three companies that comprise the Recycle Here! group are Recy-clean, Detroit City Recycling and Capital Waste.

Sources: John Francis, Capital Waste and Matt Naimi, Recy-clean
Writer: Kelli B. Kavanaugh

Photo by Dave Krieger