What I would suggest for the city council in Portland

On Channel 6 News last night there was a story on the trash issues facing Portland. We need to pull together as a community and find a solution. The facts are as follow:
* The city council has recently called for an increase in the price of the infamous blue bags;
* Revenue from this program will enable the city to expand hours and services of the city waste management station;
* Residents who are using blue bags are angry because they feel the increase in price is not justified. They also have complained the bags are not good quality.
* Councilors maintain the recycling program has worked, and an increase in price will encourage people to recycle even more.
Increasing prices of bags has been effective in encouraging recycling behavior. The city however, has stopped short in its responsibility to come up with a working solution to the trash problem. Shifting the responsibility of reducing the strain on landfills to blue bag users alone does not solve the problem. It allows businesses to go another year without recycling. Portland is a city that should be an example to other cities. The way we address the problem of waste management does not just effect Portlanders, it also can serve as a model for other cities in Maine and the U.S. It is for this reason the city needs to come up with a sustainable plan that will encourage all waste producers to recycle all the time.
The good behaviors recycling Portlanders have are use of recycle bins, waste management stations, and generally reducing waste. These are behaviors our city leaders need to support. Blue bag users have responded well to the program in place. We have adapted to recycling and made it part of our weekly budgeting. I know if I take the time to recycle I will save money on blue bags each week.
The waste management program has likewise supported people who are interested in taking care of their larger items in an environmentally sensible way. Their friendly, courteous staff has always been helpful out at Riverside. The large- item trash days are another example of an excellent initiative. It serves not just as a way of getting cellars cleaned out but also as a means of shopping for cheap items to adorn our homes with. These are three of the excellent things the city and consumers in Portland are doing to curb the number of trash bags that get to the landfill.
Logically we can encourage this kind of smart consumerism by trying to get all of Portland to the point blue baggers are at now. We should reward effective recyclers with added support of their efforts to reduce, renew, and recycle. This means getting our entire city on board -- especially the larger businesses. Many large businesses just pay to have their dumpsters emptied. They have not integrated recycling into their business plans. We need to encourage them with the same logic the City Council used to approach the people who now use blue bags. Just because it is not efficient for a business to adopt a recycling program does not mean they should not adopt one. Businesses need to adhere to the same rules of their community as we do. If I bought black bags and put them out in front of my house, I would be penalized by city ordinance. This ordinance was made to reduce the strain on landfills.
Businesses and apartment buildings too large for the blue bag initiative are getting away with not adopting sustainable recycling habits because it is not cost effective. We need to make it so. By increasing the amount of money businesses have to pay to throw out their waste, we can encourage them to create less strain on our cities landfills. Both of these special groups of Portland consumers have been less accountable for their waste than blue baggers. Recycling will have to be done by all to keep Portland a sustainable community.
We should reward effective recyclers with added support of their efforts to reduce, renew, and recycle. Community gardens are a viable source of sustenance for many gardeners in Portland. Just a small garden can produce enough nutritious food to give a small family a good varied diet come harvest time. These gardens should be encouraged by public works. A compost initiative in Portland would help people cover the 'renew' part of the slogan. Apartment dwellers do not have access to green space needed for this but should. This year I propose we try to have a composting initiative to better serve our city of Portland. There are many foods that could easily be used as assets in gardens around the city instead of expensive store-bought compost.
Lastly the subject of incentives for business to create less post-consumer waste comes into focus. In the long term we need to examine the behavior of businesses we have allowed into Portland, or that have grown up here, to test their sustainability. If a business is producing a product with lots of excess non-recyclable packaging, we should be in touch with its owners, managers, and staff as a community. We can encourage their good behavior with our consumer habits. We can curb their bad behaviors by evaluating them on a post-consumer waste scale rather than taxing them.