Beginning July 1, the City of Stillwater will make changes to its residential curbside recycling program, including random cart checks, rate changes and the types of acceptable recyclables.
“Curbside recycling is a wonderful service and we intend to make it as successful as possible,” Waste Management Manager Chris Knight said. “We’ve seen other cities drop these programs due to the misuse of recycling privileges, and we don’t want that to happen in Stillwater. We’re taking these additional steps to help keep this service available to our customers who have embraced recycling.”
Random cart checks
The Stillwater Utilities Authority (SUA) approved the cart check process at its April 17 meeting after it was reported that nearly 41 percent of the materials collected through the curbside residential recycling program in the past eight months were trash.
“The goal of the checks is to catch improper dumping before a recycling truck picks a cart up,” Knight said.
The City will begin random cart checks in July to make sure only accepted items are put in recycle carts.
“We continue to encourage our customers to recycle, and we will attempt to work with customers in person or via phone who are recycling incorrectly,” Knight said. “We will also leave cart hangers with details about what items were incorrectly put in the cart.”
On the third instance a customer is found to recycle incorrectly, the City will remove the recycle cart and the customer will lose future single-stream recycling privileges.
Rate changes
“The SUA also approved an updated residential trash rate structure at the April 17 meeting, which will go into effect on July 1,” Knight said. “The amount of rejected items in our recycling collection influences the trash and recycling rates.”
Residential trash rates were adjusted with an 8 percent increase to cover additional processing costs. For example, a customer inside city limits with a 64-gallon trash cart will see an increase of $1.19 per month.
The updated rate structure is at http://stillwater.org/
What can be recycled?
Paper products, cans, cardboard and plastics No. 1, 2 and 5 are accepted in the single-stream recycle carts. These items can remain unsorted.
“Plastics 3, 4, 6 and 7 do not have value in the recyclables market, so we are now asking customers to put these items in their trash cart,” Knight said. “Most plastics are labeled with a number. We encourage our customers to contact us with questions.”
Changes to accepted plastics also apply to the Convenience Collection Center at 807 S. Perkins Road.
Curbside residential glass recycling will continue without adjustments to the program.
Contact Customer Service for more information about the residential curbside recycling program, accepted recyclables or to request a different size trash or recycle cart.
- Phone: 405.742.8245
- Email: [email protected]
- Office: Stillwater Municipal Building, 723 S. Lewis St.
