Columbia council introduces plan to eliminate curbside recycling

Curbside recycling could be one of the casualties of the fiscal 2021 Columbia city budget unless voters approve a proposal to convert refuse collection to a roll cart system.

An ordinance introduced at Monday night’s Columbia City Council meeting would implement City Manager John Glascock’s budget proposal to end residential curbside recycling.

The ordinance would also eliminate the decades-old system where the city provides heavy-duty refuse and recycling bags for residential use as part of utility services, regardless of the outcome of a vote on roll carts.

“The current ordinance says we can modify the schedule for pickup but it doesn't say we can just flat-out eliminate it,” Glascock said after the meeting about the residential recycling program established in the 1990s. “We have to bring an ordinance that says we've got to eliminate it because we can no longer do it, we don't have the staff.”

The council could, if it wished to do so, vote to repeal the prohibitions on roll cart trash and recycling bins and the purchase of trucks capable of automated collections enacted when voters in March 2016 approved an ordinance submitted by initiative petition.

Instead, it will vote Aug. 17 on an ordinance introduced Monday night to put the issue before voters on Nov. 3. The council voted 4-3 on July 20 to instruct staff to write the ordinance needed to put the issue before voters. The vote Aug. 17 will be to actually submit the item for the election.

The placement of the issue before voters in November, when they will also be voting for federal, state and local partisan offices as well as several statewide ballot issues, is not certain.

“I hope this gets on the ballot for November, but if not I hope it gets on the ballot as soon as possible after that,” Fourth Ward Councilman Ian Thomas said after the meeting.

Before Columbia began curbside collections, most recycling efforts in the city were private or based on the city’s container deposit ordinance. That law, in effect from 1977 to 2002, required a five-cent deposit on all soft drink and beer cans and bottles, with retailers responsible for accepting and refunding the deposits for all containers presented for payment.

Glascock’s budget estimates the city will save about $700,000 by eliminating trash and recycling bags $1.9 million by ending curbside recycling.

Solid waste utility rates will not decrease. The budget also does not propose increasing rates.

Since the city stopped collecting recycling in July, it has asked residents who wish to continue to recycle to take materials to large bins located around the city. On Monday afternoon, the bins were overflowing in several locations.

“I came down here, Saturday before last, to the armory, the bin was empty yet there was a pile around it,” Glascock said. “People just throw them out. They need to be educated on how to use them properly. “That’s where I go because I can’t get in the other ones.”

The pull-back on the city’s commitment to recycling may be viewed unfavorably, Glascock said, but it is unavoidable.

“I can tell you I can’t provide it because I don’t have the staff to do it,” Glascock said. “I can’t hire the staff to do it.”

The city is advertising for refuse collectors at $17 per hour. People are not willing to do the labor involved, which includes regularly lifting up to 50 pounds several times an hour for most of a shift, Glascock said.

“They don’t want to do it,” Glascock said. “People are not accustomed to doing physical labor any more. When you were a kid, I bucked hay bales for 2 cents a bale, all night long.”

The job — and the number of people willing to take it — will change if the city adopts a roll cart system with the trucks that eliminate lifting as part of the job, Glascock said.

“So, if I can make it a deal where you can sit in the cab with the air conditioning on, in shorts, they will do it all day,” he said.

The elimination of curbside recycling will be a difficult decision but the city must collect refuse, Thomas said.

“I just have got two opposing forces that have run into each other,“ Thomas said after the meeting. ”Most people want curbside recycling but we can’t hire enough workers to do a very dangerous and unpleasant job, to do both curbside recycling and curbside trash pickup.“

The seven-member council will hold a budget work session Aug. 13 and take public comment at its next regular meeting on Aug. 17. That is also the evening it will vote on the ordinance to put roll carts before voters and repeal the requirement for curbside recycling.

There will also be public comments on the budget at the council’s Sept. 8 and Sept. 21 meetings.

In other action Monday night, the council voted to make improvements to an existing bridge on East Walnut Street near Stephens Lake Park as part of the Hinkson Creek Trail by installing two-way bicycle and pedestrian lanes.

The city found that another old bridge was too dilapidated to use for the trail.

The council also approved construction of a pavilion at A. Perry Philips Park with seating capacity for 225 to 300 to support events at the park and provide space the city can rent for public and private gatherings.