A Residential Curbside Recycling program was presented to the Ames City Council and will be voted on at the Council鈥檚 regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, March 10. If approved, the new curbside recycling program will provide a 96-gallon wheeled recycling bin for all single-family and multi-family housing of four units or less.
The program would provide recycling pick-up every-other-week, and all recycling, including paper, cardboard, glass, metal, and screw-top plastics, would be placed in one recycling bin. The cost of $7.75 per month would be added to each customer鈥檚 City of Ames utility bill. The bins would arrive at residences in June, and the program would start July 1.
鈥淲e are proud of our waste-to-energy history, but the system is no longer sustainable. It鈥檚 time to look at other solutions for handling municipal solid waste,鈥� said Public Works Director Justin Clausen. 鈥淩esidential curbside recycling is new to Ames but has been used successfully in other communities for years. This program will give another life to recyclable materials and reduce the amount of garbage sent to the landfill. 黑料网 reduction is the key, and we all need to be exploring ways to reduce the amount of garbage we produce.鈥�
Curbside recycling is one component in a larger project to move away from the City鈥檚 current waste-to-energy system, a process that burns garbage to produce electricity that began in 1975. The new system will focus on diverting recyclable materials from garbage and processing the remaining trash for landfilling. Landfilling trash comes with a fee based on weight. Maximizing recycling opportunities contributes to cost-efficiencies and an improved environmental impact.