Spread the word: “Recycling Education”

Only 17 percent of the city’s household waste makes it into recycling bins, and New York has the largest public housing system in the country, with 2,600 buildings, 174,000 apartments and more than 400,000 residents in five boroughs.

But at General Grant Houses, a sprawling public housing development off West 125th Street in Manhattan, the eco-conscious are mainly people like Ms. Gloria Allen, 82,  and Sarah Martin, who as leaders of the residents association fret as much about backed-up pipes as they do about recycling. Gloria Alley and an energetic group of volunteers  knock on the doors of  the housing project  Morningside Heights, shouting, “Recycling education!”

“Please come out, baby,” she purred. “Please come out so we can educate you on how to recycle.”

Education is crucial, they insist, so they recruit volunteers and train them in which kinds of metal, glass and plastic items can be recycled. Then they guide them from door to door, distributing color-coded bags as they impart the fundamentals to neighbors who can be welcoming, indifferent or hostile.

“It’s not easy,” Ms. Martin said. “It’s not like you slap a flier on a door and say:” Recycle. It’s the law. It takes time, patience and energy.”

Some residents refuse to budge, but many readily embrace the effort. “This saves public housing work and money and it contributes to the general hygiene,” said Jose Morales, 51, an unemployed plumber and widower with two children who correctly chose a green recycling bag when Ms. Allen tested him with a flattened cereal box.

Ms. Allen and Ms. Martin say they see recycling as a way to address the health and quality-of-life issues associated with trash, including the emissions from abundant garbage-truck pickups.

While they have to plead with the city to fix broken door locks and drafty windows, Ms. Martin said, “recycling we can control.”

“We don’t need to have a million dollars to do that and improve our environment,” she said.

The New York Times: In Public Housing, Talking Up the Recycling Bin

Watch the New York Times video and see Gloria in action: Paper Plastic and Persistence