Competition is good.

In January 2006 I wrote:

Maybe if we were all more willing to pay for this service, it would be more freely offered … free market anyone? I know that I and many of my clients (and friends and neighbors) would love the option to easily recycle. One would think that a progressive community such as ours would be able to achieve a progressive recycling program.

The City of Charlottesville offers curbside recycling as a service paid for by taxpayers, but the County has no such government offering.

I ran a poll in 2006 that led to a good discussion about recycling’s practicality. The wrap up of that poll is here:

I am befuddled and perplexed with the answer “I’ve never had to pay …” A better answer should have been “Recycling has always been a service provided by the local government, paid for with my taxes.” Maybe this is a matter of semantics, but I don’t think so. I think this is an important distinction that (one of the many reasons) serves to dissuade private enterprise from making recycling a viable business.

Recycling is something that is in greater demand from my clients. A “pulled from the air” analysis tells me that at least 50-60% of my clients either do or would like to do if it were readily available. Recycling availability falls under the heading of “quality of life” that impacts the real estate market.

In July I noted MyRecyclingClub – the first to offer curbside recycling in the Urban Ring.

Yesterday I received an email announcing a new option – Green Pieces Recycling – full text of the email after the jump.

The free market, while slow sometimes, works. It would appear that we’re reaching critical mass of recyclers. I know my neighborhood has more recyclers now that they have the option of curbside, thanks to MyRecyclingClub.

Green Pieces Recycling offers curbside recycling to make doing the right thing easier for you. Often recycling ends up getting thrown away when we don’t have the time to deal with it. We know how much your time and money is worth to you. How it works: When you sign up for our recycling service you will be provided with containers and a day of the week that the recycling can be picked up. You schedule the frequency of the pickup (every 2 or 4 weeks). When your scheduled pickup time arrives just bring your containers to the curb. We will pick them up and replace them with new containers. You are welcome to fill your containers with any of the items on the list below.

If you end up filling your containers too early, just let us know and we will be happy to pick the containers up the next time your day of the week comes around (this is considered an unscheduled pickup). Keep in mind we will only be picking up the provided containers and no additional bags, boxes, etc. However, additional containers are available. Billing will be done every other month and we encourage e-mail to save paper.

List of approved items:

Glass jars and bottles (no lids)

Recyclable plastic bottles/containers

Aluminum/Steel Cans

Newspaper and small flattened cardboard boxes *

Other recyclable paper products *

*These items need to be separated from the rest of the items and placed in their own container. (If you recycle something not on this list let me know and it will probably be okay to add it to your container.)

Pricing:

Startup Fee (includes up to 3 containers) $40 ($10 extra for every additional 3 containers)

Price per scheduled pickup $10 ($5 extra for up to 3 additional containers)

Price per scheduled pickup (with 6 month prepaid agreement) $9 ($5 extra for up to 3 additional containers)

Price per unscheduled pickup $14 ($5 extra for up to 3 additional containers)

We will try and accommodate any requests you may have so just let us know!

Contact us: 434.962.5219 greenpiecesrecycling@gmail.com