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CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERING SINGLE STREAM RECYCLING AND TRASH COLLECTION One of City Council's goals for 2008 was to develop a plan for implementing a contract for single stream recycling and trash collection. This issue has been discussed and comments taken at City Council meetings and at various other pub- lic meetings since the spring. The goals of this program are to: · provide convenient recycling services that help citizens decrease the amount of solid waste sent to landfills; · enable individual households to reduce their cost to dispose of refuse; · increase waste reduction and recycling prac- tices; · reduce the volume of heavy truck traffic on the City's residential streets, thereby reducing City expenses for street maintenance and repairs; · ensure high quality customer service. In August, the City Council gave staff direction to solicit proposals for refuse collection and recy- cling services. In September, the City sent a re- quest for proposals (RFP) to potential service pro- viders and received three responses. Each of the three proposals took slightly different approaches on the various aspects of providing waste and recyclable collection services. In November, City Council directed staff to negotiate a service contract that will represent the best combination of low cost, responsive customer service, likelihood of successful implementation, incentives for waste reduction and recycling and achieving the City's goals for the program. Once staff has been able to negotiate a contract it will come back to the City Council for consideration. This is likely to happen in December or January. Additional formal actions needed to implement a single hauler refuse and recyclables collection program include adoption of an ordinance estab- lishing a refuse collection utility and associated budget and entering into an agreement for recy- clables processing with Boulder County. No final action can or will be taken without the approval of the City Council. During the City's evaluation of the responses to the RFp, Louisville residents have been actively discussing this issue. The City's Resource Conser- vation Advisory Board has gathered information and given input to the City Council as have nu- merous residents at many public meetings. What does this mean for Louisville residents? · Residents currently covered by a homeown- ers' association trash contract and residents in multi-family dwellings will not be covered by this program; · Rates for trash service will be a volume based or "pay-as-you-throw" system to encourage recycling; under this approach a resident who fills a 32-gallon trash container will pay less than a resident who fills a 64 or 96-gallon trash container; · Curbside recycling will be included in the cost of service and all residents will receive a recycling container. The more you recycle and divert from your trash bin, thereby using a smaller bin, the less you will pay for trash removal; · It will be a single-stream recycling system so plastic recyclables (#1-7), recyclable glass and metal, paper, cardboard, and paperboard can all be placed in the same container. There is no need to sort your recyclables; · As with most existing trash service, collection of yard waste will likely be done at an addi- tional cost as an optional service; · The City will receive payment for the recy- clables processed at the Boulder County recy- cling center which the City already funds, thus helping to lower the cost of trash/recycling collection; · Basic trash/recycling service will be billed to residents by the City as a part of your current water and sewer bill. No final action has been determined. Should you have questions or input please contact your City Council members or send your comments to refusecollection@ci.louisville.co.us or leave a mes- sage at 303.335.4613.