SEA CLIFF VILLAGE BOARD CONSIDERS SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO RECYCLING AND GARBAGE COLLECTION
October 7, 2016 -- At the Tuesday, October 4 Sea Cliff Village Board Conference, Mayor Bruce Kennedy and the Village trustees discussed the possibility of making significant changes to garbage and recycling collection with several different proposals being floated.
Mayor Kennedy opened the discussion offering two suggestions for consideration. The first - to flip the collection schedule so that recyclables would be picked up twice a week, and regular garbage once a week, thus encouraging residents to recycle more. And second - to abandon single stream recycling, which allows residents to mix all recyclables (glass, paper, and metal), in favor of having residents separate recyclables. And if the village were to go that route, glass and metal would be picked up on one of the recycling days and paper on the other. The two proposals together would greatly reduce costs for the village, since the price the waste disposal facility charges for municipal solid waste is significantly higher than for recyclables, and the price of single stream, because of the labor intensive sorting process, is higher per ton than it is for separated recyclables. “I don’t think residents will do it,” said Trustee Robin Maynard referring to the separation of recyclables. “It’s so easy to do as it is now” with the single stream. Trustee Dina Epstein said that she never thought separating the recyclables was a problem. Village Administrator John Mirando proposed that all residents use the same type of bag for disposing of regular waste. He said that some villages, and cited Southhold as an example, use a translucent yellow bag which allows sanitation workers to see what is in the bag which discourages mixing in recyclables with regular garbage. Residents purchase the bag from the village. “There are places that recycle 60% of their waste,” he said, when they’ve adopted that approach. “I don’t know if I like the bag idea,” said Trustee Maynard. “I think it’ll make people angry.” Trustee Ed Lieberman agreed, but said he liked the idea of separating recyclables to cut costs and having paper picked up one day and glass,metal, and plastic the other. “Some people will see it as a hidden tax,” said Mayor Kennedy, if people had to buy the bags from the village. Trustee Maynard said that perhaps the schools could get involved to encourage people to recycle. The board agreed that any changes would not be made until the community had the opportunity to offer their input, most likely at a town hall style meeting. BACK TO WEEKLY |
