Special presentation provided recommendations for recycling expansions
Written by Katie Weidenboerner
 

At Monday evening's Council meeting, Solid Waste Consultant Michele Nestor of Nestor Resources Inc. presented her recommendations for how St. Marys can expand its residential curbside recycling program to be in compliance in a cost effective manner.

The objective of Nestor's plan was to provide curbside service to the most feasible amount of the potentially eligible homes, and to provide drop-off service in the remaining areas.

The current cost of curbside recycling is $1.15 per home with 4,278 homes serviced. This equates to $59,036.40 annually.

Currently, 75 percent of all the homes in St. Marys are serviced curbside. Of all the homes which are serviced, 80 percent are on city or state roadways.

"The reason I want to make that distinction is, in reality, you are not required to traverse private roads. Right now, your contractor does that in some respects, but essentially you can go by the same guidelines the Postal Service does and ask residents on private roads to bring the bin down to the state or city roads," Nestor said.

Of those houses which are currently serviced there is a 20 percent participation rate.

The percentage of home which are potentially eligible and remain without service is 18 percent.

The consultant stressed at the worst case scenario 800 homes could be added, and at minimum 500 homes could be added. The additional homes would be located on North St. Marys Street, out Benzinger Road as far as Monroe and just past Lecker Road.

To satisfy the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) mandate, the City must begin to add homes by Jan. 1, 2008.

The projected cost to add 800 more homes at $1.15 per home is a $11,040 annual increase. Therefore making the projected annual cost of curbside $70,076.40.

Information was provided by the City and Elk Waste so Nestor could better understand the recycling route.

"What I found is there a couple of unbalanced days. That led me to believe there may be hope here to make some changes from your current system which would allow you to move forward," Nestor said. "My goal was to work as hard as I could for you to see if we could do it with one truck. This is going to put a lot of pressure on your contractor by upping the productivity."

By reorganizing the schedule, Nestor believed the City may not be required to add another vehicle and possibly not adding more employees. This would decrease the cost.

"The truck travels about 12.5 miles per route. There are, on average, 712 homes per route. On those routes we see an average of 145 people recycling," Nestor said. "I looked at the cubic yards of each specific material that they collect. I then compared that to the size and compartment capacity of the new truck you're looking at. The truck should easily be able to handle more than 700 homes on the route."

When comparing the amount of recyclables seen now to what will potentially fit in the truck, glass is the only one material will overflow the capacity.

"My recommendation is that since there is some room on the truck, we can consolidate some of the smaller routes into a larger route. This will take a lot of work on the part of your contractor," Nestor said. "If we can achieve this we should be able to find a day and a half on which we could add more homes."

DEP will not waive the requirement to expand the program, however they are willing to consider an alternative drop-off collection in "remote" areas.

"The least cost way you can service these outlying areas would be to have a circuit rider program. A circuit rider program would break unserviced areas into quadrants, and then once a month a drop-off site could be setup. It could sit there all weekend, people could deposit there recyclables. It would then be hauled away just like any other roll-off," Nestor said. "If you left permanent roll-offs there you would be in the situation the County is in right now."

The projected cost for the circuit rider drop-off program was $85 per collection with four collections a month. This would equal a cost of $4,080 annually for the program.

Councilman Tom Farley asked how the issue of contamination could be avoided at the circuit rider sites.

"Contamination is tough, and there is two ways we can do that. The way to prevent contamination is by manning the site and through education," Nestor said.

Farley also expressed his concern with the low participation rate in curbside recycling. Nestor said she believes some of the reasons for the set out rate include education and lack of curbside recycling containers for the residents.

"I've told this to Dave (Greene) and the Recycling Task Force numerous times. You can pass all the rules and regulations you want to make recycling mandatory, but you can't make people take it to the curb," Nestor said. "The best form of education is a pay as you throw waste collection system. Right now I believe you have an unlimited waste collection system."

Deputy Mayor Denny Nero asked if the participation rate were to increase, will the truck be overloaded.

"Right now, it would take 451 set outs to fill the truck with paper. Right now, we have 145 set outs per route," Nestor said. "It would take almost 3,000 homes at the current rate of aluminum to fill up the truck, and almost 400 homes to fill it up with plastic. I think we're safe."

DEP considers inability and unwillingness to cover the cost in the General Fund an unacceptable reason for non-compliance with Act 101.

The way Nestor envisions the program in the worst case scenario, the projected cost to increase curbside and provide drop-offs would be $74,156.40. This is a $15,120 increase from the current program.

Nestor then provided five possible funding options for the program.

"One way of course is to look at your current budget and find places you can cut to pay for this - not an easy task," Nestor said. "Another way municipalities use is a tax increase - not a popular way to do it."

Nestor also said some municipalities lean toward user fees via direct billing to each residence with no exceptions.

"Right now your recycling is paid for out of the General Fund, which of course are tax dollars. The general public does not understand they are paying for recycling," Nestor said. "You currently have a mechanism to bill through your sewer and water. Another option would be for your hauler to bill the residents directly. The concern there is they would incur increased administrative work which would increase your $1.15."

Farley said he was in favor of the user fee. Nestor said everyone would pay for the user fee.

"It seems to me if you are paying for a service you're going to use it. Right now you're paying for a service and no one realizes they are paying for it because it's in the tax base," Farley said.

Nestor suggested another way was for Council to pass an ordinance which would require all residents to contract for garbage collection that would include recycling as one bundled service.

"It would be absolutely open competition at that point. You would not provide a truck. All the haulers would have to have a vehicle of their own, and all haulers would have to be competitive for the price," Nestor said. "It's a risky proposition, but it can be done. The thought there is it may retain a reasonable price because they could stand the loss of their waste customers if they would have to price the recycling competitively enough to retain their current customer base."

The last option the consultant suggested was a municipal contract for bundled services with hauler billing.

"This does bring out the best price for the short term. The danger you have is that in the long term you would be eliminating competition," Nestor said.

Council was provided with a handout with Nestor's recommendations. No decisions were made.

The next Council meeting will be held Monday, June 4 at 7 p.m.