By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

St. Cloud officials, through a survey mailed to more than 12,700 households earlier this month, are looking to residents for advice on which curbside recycling option to adopt.

Residents can choose between keeping a twice-weekly trash pick-up schedule and adding one day of curbside recycling for $2 extra each month; dropping one trash day and adding one day of curbside recycling for no additional charge; or keeping the twice-a-week trash pick-up and foregoing curbside recycling.

“These are some options that were workable from our standpoint,” Todd Swingle, St. Cloud public services administrator, said. “People do have differing lifestyles and practices. We wanted to get residents' opinions.”

As of Oct. 8, the city has received more than 2,000 resident responses either through the mail or from online returns, with more being held at the post office.

According to Thomas Bulone, the analyst complying the survey results for the city, after tallying just 1,326 responses, residents are overwhelmingly voting for reducing garbage collection by one day and adding curbside recycling at no additional charge.

Hazel Mutter lives in unincorporated Osceola County off Simmons Road; she has St. Cloud utilities but a Kissimmee address. Mutter uses the recycling drop-off location on 10th Street near Connecticut Avenue to recycle newspapers and plastic bottles. Before the two recycling drop-off centers in St. Cloud were established, Mutter just threw everything in her garbage cans but now hopes the drop-off centers remain.

“I'd probably just go back to my old way of throwing everything away,” Mutter said, if the drop-off locations were removed due to the implementation of curbside recycling for residents.

Swingle said those details will be discussed at the next Council workshop Oct. 21 at 7 p.m. at City Hall, 1300 Ninth St., St. Cloud. The recycling survey results also will be presented at that time.

At a retreat July 15, council members discussed whether the curbside program would be mandatory or voluntary if the option adopted includes the $2 additional monthly fee.

“The council has to approve whatever program is put in place. The staff's intent is that it would be a mandatory (fee) for residents but not for businesses,” Swingle said.

Council Member Jarom Fertic said he is in favor adding additional recycling drop-off centers in town if residents say they don’t want curbside recycling.

“We're concerned if enough people would want to do it,” he said.

Council Member Jay Polachek said he likes the option of keeping the twice-weekly trash pick-up schedule and adding curbside recycling for $24 a year.

“I'm not a fan of one trash pick-up a week in summer in Florida (due to) the potential smell,” he said. “We're trying to move to be more environmentally friendly and get a green city designation.”

The push toward easier recycling for St. Cloud residents comes from Florida's Department of Environmental Protection, which has the goal of 75 percent recycling by 2020.

“Human nature is if we make it easier to do, the more (people) are willing to do it,” Swingle said.