Anchorage Daily News

In just a matter of weeks, the city and the biggest private waste-hauler, Alaska Waste, have made swift progress on plans to get curbside recycling going in Anchorage.

The biggest breakthrough was Alaska Waste's decision, announced Monday, to double the number of its customer households that can sign up for recycling to 35,000 -- essentially, most of the Anchorage Bowl not served by the city garbage utility, Solid Waste Services.

The city had already decided to offer recycling in part of its service area, which covers about 20 percent of town.

And the Anchorage Assembly is scheduled to consider tonight a way to extend organized recycling to all public schools and to other public buildings, such as the new convention center. The Begich administration proposes to increase fees at the dump to pay for the added recycling services at public buildings.

Combined, the recycling plans mean the city and Alaska Waste will be serving the community well, making our town a more Earth-friendly place and extending the life of the garbage dump.

This is a turnaround from a few months ago, when it seemed as if only modest curbside recycling, within the city service area and in some test neighborhoods, would be possible this year.

That changed when Alaska Waste decided that its test projects already showed enough enthusiasm for curbside recycling for it to work in most parts of town.

Alaska Waste has one pilot program in which residents could recycle for free. It also has an experiment in which some residents can get curbside recycling for a few dollars a month.

The experiments showed that many people will recycle, said Kevin Bruce, Alaska Waste's lobbyist. But far more households, 3,800, participated in the paying program than the free one, which only got a couple hundred participants, Bruce said. While it's puzzling why people wouldn't recycle for free, the other news is all good.

The tests also showed people did a good job of sorting out what should be thrown in the garbage and what could go in the recycling bin, Bruce said. It helps that a wide assortment of materials can be mixed together in the recycling bin -- plastic soda and water bottles, aluminum cans, and all sorts of paper, from magazines to egg cartons.

In the city utility's curbside recycling program, residents will get a price break if they cut back on garbage and divert more items to the recycling bin. The Alaska Waste program will cost participants $6 a month for now, but the company hopes to move to a "pay to throw" plan like the city's next year, Bruce said.

Alaska Waste, because it's private, must get trash rate changes approved by a regulatory agency, and that's why it has to delay the reward to those who recycle.

The Assembly, which held up and questioned the city's plans; the administration, which pushed recycling in the first place; and Alaska Waste, which sped up its plans to pick up recycling at people's houses, all played a role in making curbside recycling widely available here.

Congratulations all around.

BOTTOM LINE: Suddenly, we're a recycling town, thanks to Alaska Waste and the city.

SIGN UP: for curbside recycling, if it's available in your area, at

www.alaskawaste.net

Knik Arm

Fork in road, or stick fork in it?

Gov. Sarah Palin wants some answers on the status of the Knik Arm crossing.

So do plenty of other Alaskans.

The governor wants to know just what the Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority has accomplished with five years and $41.5 million.

So do plenty of other Alaskans.

And -- judging by a letter from the state Department of Transportation -- the governor wants the authority on a shorter leash for the sake of strict accountability.

The letter reminds the authority that federal highway money isn't free. If the Knik Arm crossing project doesn't go forward, the state could be on the hook for most of the millions the authority has spent so far. The letter goes on to demand a thorough explanation of expenditures, requests for proposals and projections.

How realistic are prospects for financing, building and maintaining a bridge of more than a mile and a half across Knik Arm? What happens if the projected traffic doesn't materialize? Who will pay for a $200 million connection between the bridge and Gambell and Ingra streets in Anchorage? What's the real cost of the bridge likely to be?

The authority has long said it will cost $600 million, but that doesn't count the additional work on the Anchorage side. Costs could be closer to $1 billion. "The bridges to nowhere" tag will make it tougher to tap the U.S. taxpayer.

Good on the governor for demanding a no-nonsense update from the authority. She's gotten at least some of the response she asked for in 80 pages from the authority, which has refused to make its response public. The Palin administration should let Alaskans see the authority's answers. The Knik bridge project needs to stand or fall in an open process.

Since 2003, public pressure and pointed questions gradually forced the authority to acknowledge that bridge-building entails a lot more than engineering a span from bank to bank. Alaskans on both sides of the bridge need to know what the total costs will be and who will be paying what share.

Both the governor and Darryl Jordan, former deputy director of the authority, said the project has stalled. Calls for it have subsided, despite a bulging state surplus and five years of work. So it's a good time to decide if the crossing is on or needs to go back on the shelf.

BOTTOM LINE: Fish or cut bait on the Knik Arm crossing -- and do so in the open.

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