Why we don’t recycle

Though Lafayette is increasingly thinking green, some worry this generation isn’t taking the initiative when it comes to the environment.

Bob Moser
The Times of Acadiana
Week of April 18, 2007

When it’s simple, people will recycle.

Lafayette, the state leader in recycling and the first Louisiana city to create a curbside program, is one of the latest communities proving simplicity works.

About 14,000 residents made the city’s one-bin recycling program part of their daily lives last year, and another 1,300 bins are on order from Baton Rouge-based Recycling Foundation, which handles pickups in Lafayette.

The city switched neighborhood curbside recycling to a one-bin system in May 2006, moving away from three separate bins for paper, plastic and metal that had been used since 1989. Residents like tossing everything together, and recycling tonnage in Lafayette has grown by about 30 percent with the one-bin system.