By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

Osceola County commissioners Monday voted to implement a curbside recycling plan that will increase residents' recycling participation and decrease landfill waste.

The plan will limit garbage pickup to once a week, with a second day dedicated to curbside recycling and a third to yard waste collection. Under the plan, residents may not see an increase to their waste collection bill, county officials said.

Curbside recycling will start in six months, which gives residents time to adjust to once-a-week garbage collection. The idea is that residents would have less waste if more material were recycled.

Residents are not limited to the amount of trash cans they can put on the curb, according to Danny Sheaffer, the county’s solid waste manager, who gave a presentation on recycling at the commission meeting.

However, two county commissioners, Ken Smith and Fred Hawkins, Monday said they are concerned about the lack of input from residents about going to once-a-week garbage pick up.

“You aren't going to please everyone,” Smith said. “It will give people six months to weigh in on the issue.”

The plan will incorporate single-stream recycling, where all recyclable material including newspapers, magazines, glass, cardboard and aluminum and steel food cans would all be thrown in together without being separated. Residents will be given a 64-gallon container to put out on collection day. Residents and businesses now have to take material for recycling to one of 20 drop-off sites.

“This is something I've been a champion of for a long time,” Commissioner Brandon Arrington said. “We are the only county in Central Florida without a recycling element.”

Osceola County has a 12 percent recycling rate, the second lowest of six Central Florida counties. Brevard County, which is starting single-stream curbside recycling in October, has the highest recycling rate at 39 percent. Florida currently has a 30 percent recycling goal with a new statewide goal of 75 percent by 2020.

Only unincorporated portions of the county will be affected by this plan; cities with their own solid waste contracts would need to negotiate recycling for their residents.

Kissimmee is considering a pilot recycling program to be in place by the end of the year and St. Cloud is currently discussing implementing curbside recycling, according to Sheaffer.

While most recyclable material is worth money when recycled, any money made from material picked up in this program would go to the waste hauler.

Currently, the county’s 20 drop-off recycling sites serve 57,000 homes. The number of sites would be scaled back with the new recycling plan, however, Sheaffer said, and remaining sites would cater to institutions such as hospitals, businesses and schools as well as multi-family apartment complexes that collect garbage in large trash containers.

The county also maintains the Bass Road Resource Recovery Site, formerly the Bass Road Landfill, which accepts yard waste, recyclables, white goods (refrigerators and dryers), tires and residential household chemicals.

County commissioners decided between three curbside recycling options. One included keeping trash pickup to two days a week but it would have increased residents' waste collection bill and started in October 2011; the other would have required rebidding all waste collection contracts for 2013.

Residents with comments and concerns regarding once-a-week trash collection and curbside recycling are urged to contact their county commissioner.