The St. Cloud City Council taking the time to conduct a survey about what residents like in terms of recycling was a good idea and should guide city officials in their decision-making on this issue.

Local governments are being pushed into residential trash recycling – like it or not – by a state mandate from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which has the goal of 75 percent recycling by 2020.

For our part and due to the current state of the economy where many residents are tapped out as far as household budgets, we like the idea of the city going to one trash collection day a week instead of two and substituting a curbside recycling day for a trash day with no change in the fee. This option is the one that an overwhelming number of survey responders so far also have chosen.

Residents are being asked to choose between three options: keep twice-weekly trash pickup and add one day of curbside recycling for $2 extra each month; the one-day a week collection and one day of recycling option; or keeping the twice-a-week trash pickup and foregoing curbside recycling. The second option also is what Osceola County officials have proposed for residents in the unincorporated area.

Curbside recycling is a far better method of reducing the waste stream than asking residents to take their recyclable items to a one of two drop-off locations in the city.

We don’t believe that residents having only a one-day a week trash collection will be an undue burden and we fully expect the city to deal with any issues relating to holiday trash collection schedules so that everyone gets at least one-day a week pickup.

Adding recycling drop-off centers in lieu of curbside recycling – as one Council member Jarom Fertic suggested – we don’t believe would be a good idea because this method of recycling generally has a much lower participation rate.

Council Member Jay Polachek did have a point, though, when he said he is worried about the potential smell from garbage during the summer with once-a-week pickup and for this reason the city should keep the semi-weekly collection schedule and add recycling for $24 more a year. To that, we say the city can always go back and add the second collection day when more people are working again if there is an odor problem.

The recycling survey results will be presented at the next City Council workshop, which is Thursday at 7 p.m. at City Hall.