Agenda - Council - 05/14/1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASE CITY-WIDE CURBSIDE RECYCLING PROGRAM OPTIONS By: City Engineer Steven J. Jankowski Background: '~;:.c~mtly passed SCORE legislation requires each municipality to make available a curb-side ~ ,.:~y!,;ling program. Anoka County has interpreted the regulations of this legislation to require a minimum of once monthly curbside pick-up of four recyclable items. To meet the requirements of this mandated program, the City received bids from four area contractors, and awarded a contract for picking up for the entire City to Ace Solid Waste Management at the unit price of $1.15 per pick-up per month. The monthly costs for this program has been consistently around $4,100 per month during the first four months of 1991. The total annual cost of this program is expected to be $49,600. At the present time, the City receives funds from the County which are generated from a six percent sales tax on solid waste disposal services. These funds must be used to defray costs for activities which mitigate landfill impact. Obviously, the mandated curbside recycling program would be an eligible use for this funding. Currently, the City is receiving $31,104.01 for 1991 which would cover approximately 63% of the curbside recycling program. Of course, if the cost of the curbside program was paid directly by the residents, the SCORE funding could be used for other landfill abatement programs. Such programs could include: brush chipping, a household hazardous waste clean-up day, the Ramsey Clean-Up day, disposal of abandoned tires, purchase of recycling containers, community recycling education programs, etc. Alternatives for financing and administering the mandated curbside recycling program were presented to the Council at the end of February. Since implementation of several of these alternatives will require several months of lead time, a decision should be made at this time on how the City wishes to administer this program on a long-term basis should be made at this time. Alternatives I I I I Alternative A - Continue the existing program. The existing program seeks competitive bids for twice monthly curbside collection for the entire City. Initially, this contract was bid for a period of two years and three months. The actual length of the contract is arbitrary and could be adjusted to any desired period. The major impact of the present program is its cost, at approximately $49,600 which is paid directly to the contractor by the City. At the present time, this cost is being funded from the Landfill Tipping Fee Fund which has a current undesignated balance in excess of $600,000. This fund could continue to support this program. If SCORE funds were applied there would be a draw of $18,500 per year on this fund. A major advantage to this alternative is the public relations value of not having a direct cost to the residentsL Recycling is a practice which should be encouraged and associating a fee for the ~'i~gram may cause it to be viewed negatively. It would also seem that encouraging programs designed to offset the negative impacts of landfilling such as curbside recycling is a reasonable use of the Landfill Tipping Fee Fund. I I I Alternative B - Require contract haulers to provide curbside recycling. Under this alternative, all contract haulers operating in the City would be required to provide curbside recycling as a part of their basic service. The greatest advantage of this alternative is that it virtually eliminates City government administrative involvement and costs with this program. However, individuals without collection services would be eliminated from the recycling program. Communities in the County without municipally provided collection have a number of residents without contract collection service. The percentage of such residents is highly variable