By Fallan Patterson
Staff Writer

St. Cloud residents will soon have the opportunity to recycle from home as city officials are gearing up for the Oct. 1 curbside recycling rollout.

The city would be the first county government entity to offer a curbside recycling program, according to Sandra Ramirez, St. Cloud’s public information officer.

Officials are hammering out the details for hauling the recyclables as well as which company would receive the recycled materials.

The City Council approved in May single-stream, weekly curbside recycling after weighing the results of a city-issued survey in which 75 percent of the more than 3,000 participants stated they want the service.

In order to keep waste collection rates from rising, residents, beginning in October, will have one day a week trash, recycling and yard waste pickup. Fifty-five percent of the survey participants indicated once-a-week trash collection was sufficient if curbside recycling were implemented.

If the city kept the twice-weekly trash collection, residents would pay $24 more annually to cover an increase in equipment and labor costs.

City officials, however, did anticipate the move to curbside recycling would not only save money but also become a revenue source.

Former Public Services Administrator Todd Swingle previously said dropping the second trash collection day would reduce the tipping fee the city pays to dump trash at the JED Landfill in Holopaw.

Additionally, because recyclable material is worth money if sold, the city could bring in as much as $49 per ton, according to estimates city staff prepared for the City Council.

“This will help us cover costs,” Veronica Miller, interim public services administrator, said.

The 64-gallon recycling carts will allow residents to single-stream their recycling; a list of accepted materials will be molded into the lid and residents will not have to separate the materials.

“You put them all in one bin,” Miller said.

Residents, for example, may be able to recycle newspapers, phonebooks and office paper but not magazines, depending on the capabilities of the recycling plant.

City staff is hoping, within the next month, to make a recommendation about a potential recycling contractor to the City Council, Miller said.

The city still needs to purchase 12,000 blue recycling carts, similar to the burgundy garbage carts residents currently have. The price tag for the carts is $575,400, according to Miller.

Last month, an updated administrative policy manual was approved by the City Council to include recycling details with other waste management procedures.

The manual allows residents to pay a one-time $100 fee for a second trash, recycling or yard waste cart rather than be charged $8.50 a month per cart for the duration a cart is used. If a resident has already exceeded $100 by paying the monthly fees, the resident is vested and no longer has to pay for the cart, Chris Fasnacht, deputy director of operations for St. Cloud’s Public Services department, said.

Residents and council members have previously voiced concern over the placement of the third waste container. Some local homeowners associations have by-laws that require waste containers to be stored out of view, such as in a garage, for aesthetic purposes.

“There is a third cart that will have to be put somewhere at someone’s house,” Fasnacht said. “The benefit far outweighs the inconvenience.”

Related business

The City Council agreed Thursday to attempt to extend its current waste collection contract, which expires in October, to the end of the year in order to issue a bid invitation and compare companies with staff’s estimates of the city’s ability to haul its own garbage.

Fasnacht said, after consulting other cities that haul their own refuse, St. Cloud could purchase four garbage trucks, hire four new employees and haul its own trash for less money than the current contract is worth.

“We feel very confident with this,” he said. “I’m pretty passionate about it or I wouldn’t be up here.”

The city’s annual contract with Stafford Trucking is $663,000; Fasnacht estimated the city could do the same job for $526,000 the first year, with $30,000 set aside in the first three years for truck maintenance, during which the vehicles would be under warranty.

“We’re not looking to make money,” Fasnacht said. “We’re looking to run efficiently.”

Despite Fasnacht’s comment, according to estimates he provided to the council, the city could save more than $3 million over 10 years hauling its own trash to its transfer center and landfill.

Hauling its own waste would allow St. Cloud to enter into contracts with Kissimmee and Osceola County to collect their refuse and boost revenue, Fasnacht said.

Council members wanted to open the contract for bid to compare companies with the city’s estimates of hauling refuse themselves.

“A lot of people are doing business for a lot less now,” Councilman Thomas Griffin said. “I think we owe that to people.”

Fasnacht admitted staff was not pleased with Stafford Trucking’s service and a bid could ensure the city doing the hauling would, in fact, be the best deal available.

“If we find out it’s not comparable (to city estimates), then we have plan B,” Councilwoman Mickey Hopper said.

The Oct. 1 curbside recycling start date would not be affected by the hauling contract, Miller said.