New Orleans households will keep curbside recycling as part of their sanitation service under the new collection model approved by the City Council, an outcome Councilmember Lesli Harris has spent the better part of a year fighting for.
Recycling has been on unsteady ground in New Orleans for years. Harris pressed to make sure that didn’t happen here, and that weekly recycling stayed in the service every household receives rather than becoming an optional add-on or a line item to be dropped later.
“Recycling is not a frill, and I wasn’t willing to let it quietly disappear,” said Councilmember Harris. “Once a city lets curbside recycling go, it doesn’t come back, not in this budget, not in this decade. New Orleanians have told me they want a city that takes this seriously, and keeping weekly recycling in our basic service is how we honor that.”
Harris has been the Council’s most consistent voice on recycling. New Orleans currently recycles a fraction of its waste stream, and city goals call for that share to grow substantially by 2030. Today, she once again requested the administration expand its education and communications around proper recycling.
With weekly collection and continued recycling secured, Harris said her next priority is glass. “Glass is one of the easiest things to recycle, but for a variety of reasons it can’t be collected curbside,” Harris said. “Right now, whether you can recycle glass in this city depends on how far you’re willing to drive. That’s a program for people with a car and a free Saturday. I want a drop-off site at at least one NORD facility in every single council district, so a family in New Orleans East or Algiers has the same access as a family anywhere else in this city.”
Harris will work with the Moreno administration, the Department of Sanitation, the Office of Resilience and Sustainability, and NORD to identify sites, evaluate hauling and processing partners, and bring forward a plan for at least one glass recycling location in each of the five council districts. Last term, Councilmember Harris was able to secure a glass recycling drop off at city hall in partnership with Glass Half Full.
“Recycling shouldn’t be a luxury or a scavenger hunt,” Harris said. “It should be something you can do on your way home. That’s the standard I’m holding us to.”