By Dan McKay
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Inmates from the county jail are helping Albuquerque recycle.
The county and city of Albuquerque have reached an agreement allowing female inmates from the Metropolitan Detention Center to work at the Cerro Colorado landfill on the far West Side, where they sort recycled material into bundles.
The sorted bundles are more valuable than the co-mingled bales the city has to sell at a discount sometimes because of a lack of staffing.
The city hopes to make enough money to offset the $300,000 it has agreed to pay the county for use of the inmates.
“We can get more money for this bale than before,” Mayor Richard Berry said Monday as he used a bundle of plastic bottles for a podium.
County Commission Chairman Art De La Cruz said he promised during his election campaign that he’d work with other government agencies and the county is fulfilling that pledge now.
Working together, in fact, hasn’t always been so easy for the two local governments, which have argued over jail funding, water line extensions and other issues in the past.
County Manager Thaddeus Lucero said the Berry administration has been easy to work with.
“It’s a breath of fresh air,” he said.
Inmates could be seen Monday sorting out recyclables that passed by on a conveyor belt.
They put newspaper into one enormous container, plastics into another and trash into yet another. They will get packs of snacks and other items as a reward for the work, but no cash.
Berry wants to work with a private company to build a new recycling plant. It’s not clear whether inmates will still be needed if that happens. They might be able to switch to other “solid waste” work, such as litter cleanup, officials said.
Copyright 2010 Albuquerque Journal