The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, due to the high temperatures expected this week, garbage, recycling and yard waste crews will be in your area earlier than usual on Thursday, June 20 and Friday, June 21. Please have all materials outside and ready for collection THE NIGHT BEFORE your scheduled day.
Continue reading Early Morning Garbage, Recycling and Yard Wast Collections in Ridgewood
photos courtesy of Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgefield Park NJ, Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco joined Commissioner Mary Amoroso and Commissioner Tracy Zur along with officials from the Village of Ridgefield Park to cut the ribbon on Village Of Ridgefield Park NJ’s brand-new EPS Densifier! Expanded Polystyrene, or EPS, is one of the most widely used packing and insulation materials across the globe, and also one of the most inconvenient materials to dispose of. It can take more than 500 years for EPS, more commonly known as “Styrofoam”, to decompose
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the Village Planning Board successfully adopted the 2022 Master Plan. This has been an incredibly involved process that could not have happened without the dedicated residents and stakeholders of the Village of Ridgewood. Beginning with the visioning process, which involved extensive public outreach initiatives and culminated in Our Village Our Future, and working our way through the multifaceted master plan process, the Village has demonstrated its commitment to investing in the future of its citizens and business owners.
Continue reading Village of Ridgewood Adopts Comprehensive Master Plan!
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Paramus NJ, Last week Bergen Community College’s team at the Community College Intelligence Challenge in Washington, D.C. was named the #1 overall winner with their “ScanCan”: The Intelligent Recycling Bin.” The “ScanCan” is a recycling bin that senses whether or not a product is recyclable before allowing it to be disposed of. Congratulations to students Jacob Jalinski, Tyler Jacobs, and Roee Shalom along with faculty mentors Luis De Abreu and Joseph Sivo. They also earned a congratulations from Bergen County Executive Jim Tedesco.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Demarest NJ, Holly Foothorap has a new appreciation for the value of a plastic bottle. During a 10-day service trip to the Dominican Republic, this Academy of the Holy Angels senior repurposed these ubiquitous recyclables to construct a durable home for a local family.
Continue reading Academy of the Holy Angels Senior Learns Benefits of Blending Service & Recycling
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Cartridge Evolution specializes in the recycling of printer cartridges to ensure they do not end up in landfills while keeping products cost-effective for consumers. They partner with charities to give back.
Continue reading CARTRIDGE EVOLUTION AND THE VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD LAUNCH INK RECYCLING PROGRAM
Continue reading Recycling : Saving the Earth or Make Work Virtue Signaling
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Recycling will continue to be picked up as scheduled, which volume has doubled.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Please see the important, updated information below about various Village information, due to COVID 19 coronavirus:
All Village offices and departments will continue to be closed to the public, until further notice.
Pictured (from left): Maria Mediago, Vice President, Facilities Management, The Valley Hospital; Howard Halverson, Director, Environmental Services, The Valley Hospital; and Audrey Meyers, President and CEO, Valley Health System.
December 4,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (EPA) has recognized Valley’s commitment to recycling with an outstanding achievement award.
Valley was lauded for its recycling efforts, which include solid waste, medical waste, recycled waste and hazardous waste. The hospital uses a single-stream recycling system and makes a concerted effort to recycle whenever possible. For example, the OR now sends its reports electronically, which is saving hundreds of reams of paper annually. The hospital also recycles items such as old hospital beds and sends certain medical goods to be recycled for use by other institutions.
According to the EPA, “The Department promotes recycling through the annual recycling awards program that is coordinated in conjunction with the Association of New Jersey Recyclers (ANJR). The awards recognize the outstanding recycling achievements of municipalities, counties, businesses and industry and individuals, as well as schools and other institutions and are presented at ANJR’s annual recycling symposium. This program has generated positive publicity for New Jersey’s recycling efforts.”
file photo by Boyd Loving
They will begin issuing summonses for violations of the new Recycling policy just like they did with the leaves. A new way to make money for the parking garage. Hold onto your wallets!
“The level of fees is under siege and has actually decreased 18% over the last 3 years from $332,552 to $266,232; a further decline is anticipated in 2016.”
The residents are the ones under siege here in Ridgewood; not fees. But I get your logic since you intend to raise my parking fees by 400% this summer to support the county garage.
If you happen to watch the recycle refuse being collected it is not uncommon to watch it be all be loaded into the same exact collection gate on the truck. We spend time separating the papers into different bins only to watch them get dumped into the same place.
I did ask the driver one time about this and he said they had reached the limit and it did not matter too much on paper differences.
At the end of the day seems like a simple jobs program with unmeasured results
It’s another simple edict: do as we say or the fines will continue. Years back when the Village was going to stop hauling the BoE garbage, they offered to do it for a price. (Around $125k/yr, I think) The BoE put out a bid for quotes and it resulted in a hauler taking it for about half the price. I am not attacking our hard-working village employees but for Roberta to say ‘give us only pristine garbage’ is absurd.
Let’s start by removing the Garbage from Village Hall…
Conveniently it meets there every other Wednesday night and sometimes by appointment if you are a special interest or campaign contributor.
Or you can just remember to vote in this coming election so you don’t have to get the stink of these skunks on you.
Dear Resident,
For those of you who have watched the 2016 budget work sessions, one of the highlights (or actually lowlights) that was discussed is the state of recycling in Ridgewood today. This is by no means a problem unique to Ridgewood.
Our curbside recycling program began in 1991. We ask our residents to separate their recycling into different streams and to use the beige recycling barrels that we provide to you. We sell our recycling products to processors and in the past have collected enough fees to significantly help in offsetting the expense of running this program. The level of fees is under siege and has actually decreased 18% over the last 3 years from $332,552 to $266,232; a further decline is anticipated in 2016.
This is not a Ridgewood-specific challenge. Based on global issues, predominantly the China crackdown dubbed Green Fence, recycling processors are finding it increasingly difficult to supply China, a major global recycling processing center, with recycling products. China is rejecting containers of waste it deems are contaminated or are not sorted appropriately.
Which brings us back to our challenge in Ridgewood……
Our recycling processor has, with little notice, tightened their standards for the product that we provide to them. We therefore must provide the recycling processor with the most pristine product that we can – this means that it is so very important that we improve the quality of our recyclables.
One particular problem is the inclusion of plastic bags with your recycling – this is not allowed. When mixed in with other recycling, plastic bags get caught in the machinery at the recycling plant at times causing the facility to shut down their sorting equipment to manually remove entangled bags. When the processor has to manually separate this material from our stream, the Village loses revenue and pays for the disposal of the material as garbage. Not intermixing plastic bags with your recycling has always been a rule since the inception of our recycling program but has not been strictly enforced because the market was accepting the product without question. Plastic bags must be placed in your trash or recycled at Stop & Shop, Whole Foods Market and Acme.
Besides not intermixing plastic bags with your recycling, you can help us even more by following good recycling practice which you can find either in the 2016 Green Guide that was mailed to your home earlier this year or on our Recycling Website or by calling us at 201-670-3373.
I have touched on the Ridgewood economic challenges above……but a crucial point is that recycling is good for our world…..this should be reason enough for us to try to do better as a community. We have also challenged our recycling team to come up with new and different ways to enhance our program. As usual, we would love to hear your ideas on this – I know that we have many residents who are passionate about this issue.
We look forward to working with you on this effort.
Best,
Roberta Sonenfeld
Village Manager
201-670-5500, ext. 203
Sanitation and Recycling Adjusted Schedule Due to Weather
Sanitation/Bulk Pick-Up: We announced last week that we would be doing bulk pick up on both east and west sides this Wednesday. We are going to add curbside garbage pick-up on the west side to the bulk pick-up already planned for Wednesday. This will make up for those on the west side who did not get their garbage collected today – please place your garbage at the end of your driveway with your bulk items in order that it may be picked up.
For today east side garbage pick-up, please place your garbage at the end of your driveway for guaranteed pick-up. If the path to the refuse containers are free of snow and ice, we will attempt rear yard pick-up. Recycling: Yesterday recycling area 5 is currently underway with a skeletal crew so please be prepared for delays but our intention is to get it all picked up. Early reports from our crews indicate that many homes have not put out their recycling. Recycling area 6 should be business as usual today.
