City staff recommends switch to weekly single‑cart recycling; proposal would raise residential bills but lower long‑term costs
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Summary
Consultants and staff presented a solid-waste rate study recommending a move from curb-sort recycling to a single-cart weekly recycling service; the plan would require new trucks and carts, an initial capital outlay and proposed rate increases in 2026 and 2027 to cover costs while increasing diversion.
Peter Nierngarten, the city's environmental director, and consultants presented a solid‑waste cost-of-service study that recommends replacing curb-sort recycling with a weekly, single-cart (all-in-one) collection system to improve diversion, worker safety and long-term financial sustainability.
The recommendation would require up-front capital to buy carts and at least six new automated collection trucks; staff estimated a multiyear capital program concentrated in 2026 as trucks and carts are deployed. Consultants said the single-cart weekly model is expected to roughly double captured recyclables versus the current program, reduce worker injuries, lower ongoing operating costs and rebuild the solid-waste fund reserves earlier than the status quo.
Nut graf: under the recommended transition, the consultant proposed an initial rate adjustment — a 9.5% increase for year one (2026) followed by a 7.5% increase in 2027 — with smaller increases thereafter; for the city’s most common household service (a 64‑gallon cart) the consultant estimated a levelized $5.78 increase in monthly bills over five years compared with a $7.22 increase under the status-quo operational path.
Staff said the city currently diverts about 20% of residential waste and that a 2016 Recycling Master Plan target of 40% has not been met. A September waste sort showed an estimated 3,800 tons of recyclables buried in the residential trash stream last year — roughly a 40% capture rate of recyclable material generated — and commercial capture rates were lower. Consultants flagged cardboard and glass as large components of the recyclables stream by weight.
Councilmembers asked about contamination control, privacy concerns related to truck-mounted cameras and the cost/availability of regional processing capacity. Councilmember Bernal and others requested additional data on contamination rates from nearby cities piloting automated contamination-detection systems (Springdale was cited as a pilot site) and asked staff to provide processing cost comparisons and projected contract terms in the RFP that staff will run for an external processor.
Staff said a transition would require ordering trucks (long lead times), buying carts for residential customers, designing a public education campaign and issuing an RFP for a processor; staff recommended bringing a formal rate ordinance for council consideration on July 15. No formal vote occurred during the agenda session.
Ending: Staff will return with the full rate ordinance and implementation schedule, including truck lead times, RFP timetable for processing services, contamination-management specifications and answers to privacy questions about automated on-truck cameras.