Recycling: The question is What?

Yesterday Mayor Nutter announced a new upcoming initiative to spur participation in recycling among Philly residents. Regina Medina covered it for today's Daily News:

By recycling glass, paper, soda cans, etc., folks will be able to earn reward points that'll be redeemable toward discounts or gift cards at about 140 local and national retailers, as well as at a few nonprofits.

The program is expected to raise the city's diversion rate - the amount of recyclable materials diverted away from landfills - to 20 percent by 2011 and 25 percent by 2015, the mayor said. It's currently just 15.6 percent.

And the recycling-rewards program can reset the buttom on how residents view recycling. "We have to change the mindset and the culture here in the city about how we think about trash," Nutter said.

All true. But let me quickly repeat what I've said before about "changing the mindset." For many of us the question isn't whether something we'd otherwise throw away should be recycled, but whether it can be under local recycling policies.

Glass, cans and cardboard are easy. Plastic is not. Faced with a choice between 1) searching every millimeter of a container for a recycling symbol and number and then correlating that with our meager memory of which numbers are applicable and which aren't, and 2) just chucking it... is it any wonder many of us will pick the second option?

As this new incentive program rolls out, here's hoping the City of Philadelphia will get serious about educating the public in exhaustive detail about what is and is not recyclable here. How about a contest for the best YouTube video that gets the message across in a fun, memorable way?

Meanwhile, to sign up for a rewards account, go to www.phillyrecycling pays.com. Or call rewards customer affairs at (888) 769-7960.