During an interview on NewsRadio 1620 yesterday, Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward apologized for the recycling debacle that was uncovered earlier this month. He also intimated that he wasn’t aware the city had stopped sending its recyclables in September 2017 . (Read Trash Talks)
“One of the things I want to say on this show, Andrew (McKay – the show’s host), I want to apologize to the citizens of Pensacola that I serve,” said Hayward when the host brought up recycling. “You know, I was angry and most importantly upset that we weren’t … ’cause I believe in recycling more.”
The mayor then began talking about the declining international market for recyclables, citing New York Times article by Livia Ripka. The May 29 article reported that plastics and papers from dozens of American cities and towns are being dumped in landfills after China stopped recyclables.
The mayor said, “January 1, (China) banned imports, so it’s been very difficult for America and a lot of these small towns and of course big cities to find a place to put this and its become a hazard.”
Hayward didn’t explain why the city renewed its agreement Tarpon Paper in Loxley, Ala. last year, even though the ECUA facility at the Perdido Landfill was closer and cheaper. Plus, ECUA would handle glass, while the Loxley facility wouldn’t.
He didn’t discuss the city’s decision to not immediately switch to ECUA last September—three months before China announced its decision.
However, Hayward did admit that it has cost the city more to send the recyclables to the dump rather process them at ECUA’s Materials Recycling Facility.
McKay said: “It’s been costing more to send it to the dump, right?”
Mayor Hayward replied, “Yeah, absolutely.”
China has not banned our recycling . They ARE stopping “dirty” recycling.. Many companies take a shortcut in sorting thus allowing everything into the package… China is being forced to resort it and then they are stuck with landfill waste…
Again, the new Mayor needs to clean house and start off with a clean slate. That means Olson, Barker, Sisson, Lyter, Wells, and all the other Dept. heads need to go.
In Hayward’s own words above, he appears to claim that he is not in the loop and so not really the CEO of the city government as he brags. If it is true that he is clueless, and many senior staffers have said this about Hayward’s general vision of himself as a non-executive playboy mayor who keeps himself out of the loop and shifts blame, then who is to be held accountable. A leadership mayor would already have fired both City Administrator Eric Olson and Sanitation & Fleet Management Department Director Jerry Moore if they withheld this information from Hayward. The fact that they have not been fired seems to prove that Hayward is lying when he claims he was not told about the problem. If he fired Olson and Moore, they might talk and present written evidence proving that they had told Hayward. After regime change in November, the city needs to let ECUA pick up the trash inside city limits at lower cost and doing a better job. with the caveat that city customers would retain their current garbage cans because without them it is impossible to know when you are inside city limits. The next phase that could be done at any time would be for the Escambia County Commission to vote to transfer the Perdido Landfill to ECUA, further reducing rates paid by ECUA customers.