New Recycling Program Not Free
November 10, 2009
Reported by Catherine Bilkey, Cheyenne Bureau
Organizers of a new curbside recycling program in Cheyenne are working out some kinks.
"The City did a pilot program for several months out in the Sun Valley area and the folks that were involved in that gave the program very high marks,” City Councilman Jack Spiker said. “They like what it did for protecting our community and the environment."
The new city recycling program is now out of the pilot stage and on the curbs of residents south of Pershing Boulevard. The program is a single-stream system, where all recyclables can be placed in the blue bins given to every household.
"You put five items in the blue bin, and they're sorted out at another building so it makes it really, really simple,” Spiker said.
But, the blue bins aren’t exactly free.
"It was recommended to council that five dollars would be a good number for all households to pay,” Councilman Jim Brown said.
The new five dollar fee was supposed to be put on residents’ water utility bills, but after hearing from angry neighbors, and the council’s own worries that the fee might be too high, the bill is being put off.
"The bills that would have received the fee would have gone out Monday and working with the Department of Public Works, we decided not to add the bill but rather to delay the bill for a while, while the city evaluates what their options are,” spokesman for the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities Clint Bassett said.
The council is looking into lessening the burden of the fee.
"We've come up with a formula, Councilman Spiker, Councilman Collins, and myself, have come up with a formula that's on first reading in the finance [committee] next week that we feel there should be a tiered cost involved much like the Board of Public Utilities does on your water bill,” Brown said.
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