Austin Average in Recycling Habits – San Antonio Dominates

This really surprises me, almost to the point of skepticism. We have free, curb side recycling in gigantic rolling cans that accepts almost anything, and Austinites are almost self righteous about recycling. What other criteria did they look at? Were they looking at cities, or metro areas? (Williamson County might have dragged us down a bit.)

Me too! All kidding aside (above), If someone asked me to name top recycling cities, I know I’d have San Fran, Madison, and Austin way up there.

@Parameters: good question…
a) Whether recycling is mandatory in “city” (this could be where a lot of these lists fail in painting true picture. Los Angeles might as well be a state!)
b) How easy the city made it for residents to recycle (meaning do residents need to sort materials?)
c) Bonus points to cities that went beyond plastic and paper recycling
d) The % of household that actually took advantage of program city offers.

So many confounding factors huh? And with a smaller city, there’s less data which can skew averages as you were eluding too.

Yes, this shocks me too. Up here in North Dallas at board meetings, or in classes I go to about “Green Building” or affordable housing — Austin is the blueprint, or the comparison as to what a Texas city should strive for in recycling or eco-friendly living.

It almost always comes up about the retro-fitting of older homes to meet water saving fixtures, I guess I would have just assumed recycling was right there with it.

Jay, agreed. I was talking about this it at dinner and I think Eric was getting at the problem. I don’t want to put words in his mouth but the “Cities” vs. “Metro Areas” is what ends up skewing averages. That is Washington DC is a Metro area for all intents and purposes filled with smaller “cities”. Madison is a town with a “communal” feel IMHO.

Some other thoughts about criteria used to grade “cities”
a) Recycling mandatory:
This one is a pretty solid variable – that is, population/”definition of a city” won’t skew results (at least, I can’t think of how they could of the top of my head)
b) Whether you have to sort out dif. materials? / If there’s curbside pick-up (forgot this one last time):
This one’s okay but how much is it weighted into the final grade?
c) Bonus points for recycling other materials outside of paper, plastic, and glass:
It looks like “electronics/computers” is one of the major bonuses BTW. Well what if Austin is a big “freecycle” town or there are a lot of non-profits that will take old/broken computers and fix them…therefore government doesn’t have to “create” a program.
d) % of Households that use recycling resources:
This is the one Eric nailed. A smaller city with just one area that doesn’t take advantage of the resources for one reason or another, will could dramatically throw off skew the %s.

Finally, how did they weigh these 4 criteria. IMO it’s almost impossible to compare apples to apples with most lists like these unless you break each city down by a smaller subdivision or zip codes. Kind of like real estate!

This is interesting. I wonder where Atlanta is on this list? We have to pay for curbside pick-up of recycling and it is not that popular. I guess our city is lacking in the “green” status.

Kevin, Thanks for plugging Madison for being good recyclers! Most everybody here is pretty into it as I know you know. I ran into an ex-boyfriend when I first moved back here five years ago and was appalled when I found out that he REFUSED to recycle! I have not met anyone else like that here. Most people really take pride in their city (and planet!). -Jolenta

@ Jennifer: Atlanta came in at #48 per the article? I don’t know :-) The metrics are a little messed up.

@ Jolenta:
Madison deserves it :-) It’s definitely up therein that communal sense IMO. I think Austin is similar in this regard. And in reality, is a lot closer to the top 5 than the numbers seem to indicate. Oh well!

Good riddance! We already have a bunch of concerned citizen. At least we can now say that people are getting involve in keeping the environment safe through recycling. This way we can experience living life to the fullest because we can see the serenity of every surroundings. I can boast on SAS Sylt scenery..its very refreshing too.

Interesting post. Although I don’t think anyone would base a relocation decision entirely on this sort of data, we do find that this sort of ranking does help people choose between one city or the other when they come to make their final decision about where to move to. Great blog.

@ Tim – Interesting…so you’ve found some data that show’s recycling habits is a variable (albeit a small data piece) for some people’s final decision once they honed in on an area. I know you mentioned city but does your data get specific about whether people drill down to specific neighborhoods? That’d be really cool to know b/c then it seems the decision is less based on statistics/metrics and more based on reputation (once you get down to a “micro-level”). Thanks, Tim…

I am surprise to see Las Vegas ranking so low. I would think that they’d would take all of the trash tosed out on the strip and recycle it.

If you’ve ever come to Las Vegas for a vacation you will kno what I am talking about.