I was reminded by Philebrity’s commentary on the city’s recycling PSA posters that this week marks the beginning of weekly, single-stream, curbside pick up of recycling.  WHYY’s Bill Hangley did a story that ran on 91FM this morning about recycling that included information about the city’s Christmas tree recycling program:

City officials want 2009 to be a banner year for recycling of all kinds.  Last year the city made almost $2 million reselling used glass, plastic and paper.  Starting today the Streets Department begins picking up recycling weekly instead of every two weeks.  While the market for resold recycled material has plunged in recent months, experts say the cost of landfill space in the region will continue rising by several percentage points a year.  That means it will only get more expensive to throw things away.

Drop off locations for the Christmas trees are available on the city’s website.  It’s important to reiterate that this is a drop-off service.  If you leave your tree on the curb, it will be picked up and taken to a landfill.  I know this is somewhat of a hardship for folks without cars who, like me, walked their tree back from a street corner sales location, but perhaps the new Obama-esque trend of organizing will lead one of your neighbors (or you) to offer to take a few trees to one of these locations on your own car roof.

Click on the play button below to listen to the entire story.

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So while it will now be easier to remember when to put your metal, plastic, paper, cardboard and glass on the curb, 2009 will also see fewer fire companies in service in Philadelphia.  WHYY’s Tom MacDonald talked to Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers to get more information, including the city’s plans for the decommissioned apparatus and the fate of the fire fighters:

Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers says the 7 companies were taken out of service at this morning, and the firefighters were put on the detail of packing up and decommissioning the equipment.

Ayers: “It’s a whole process where the older trucks are pushed back into inventory, some of which will be ultimately sold by fleet management and others which will be in storage, used for backup vehicles of some sort and also as vehicles when we maintain some of the others they will be put into use until the maintenance work is done.”

The Commissioner adds once the packing and moving is done, the firefighters will report to their new assignments.

Ayers: “They’re being moved around to omit the overtime, and where we needed to call in a firefighter on or off duty and pay them overtime, we won’t have to do that now they will actually fill those slots.”

On a personal note, Ladder 11 at 12th and Reed Street is about a block from my house and is included in the two ladder companies that are now out of service - the other being Ladder 1 near Fairmount.  Undoubtedly, it won’t be long until a structure fire or fire-related death occurs that many say would have been prevented had one of the closed stations been in operations.  Those in the affected neighborhoods must now hope that everything the Fire Department has said about continuity of coverage is true.

Click on the play button below to listen to the story.

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