Cleveland Recycling Program Canceled

Due to a severe budget shortfall, Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell announced last Monday that the city is eliminating curbside recycling and leaf pickup. Mark Ricchiuto, the Director of the Department of Public Service, disclosed the details, stating:

The cuts will cost 44 workers their jobs and save the city $2.6 million . . . [and]

"When you have a budget deficit of this significance, you have to make tough decisions," Ricchiuto said. "Our first priority is safety and health."

Of note is that other cities, Cincinnati and Chillicothe, are also considering dropping curbside recycling in their efforts to cut costs.

What isn't mentioned often is the fact that, almost universally, recycling programs are a net drain on government budgets. It represents another utopian idea of the environmentalists that will never work until somebody figures how to make money from it. Up till now and the foreseeable future, recycling programs require taxpayer subsidies to operate. In the case of Cleveland and other cities, there are no taxpayer dollars available for low priority projects.