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Longview proposes next-day recycling pickup, stricter blue-cart rules to cut contamination
Summary
City staff proposed moving recycling pickup to the day after each household's trash day, expanding accepted plastic types and treating blue-lidded carts set out on trash day as trash. The change aims to reduce contamination at the Kilgore MRF, save on tipping fees, and begin Nov. 3, with public education and cart-sticker outreach planned.
Longview's director of public works on Thursday proposed changing residential recycling collection so recycling crews pick up materials the day after each household's trash day, a move the city says would reduce contamination and save processing costs.
'So what we propose is if your trash day is, let's say, on a Monday, your recycling day would be the next day,' Director of Public Works Dwayne Archer told the City Council. 'So the recycling trucks would run Tuesday through Friday, trash trucks from Monday through Thursday.'
Archer said the change, with a targeted start date of Nov. 3, responds to high contamination rates at the MRF the city uses in Kilgore. He cited two costs the city wants to avoid: the facility's standard tipping fee of about $75 per ton for normal loads and a proposed penalty of roughly $150 per ton for loads that arrive so contaminated the MRF rejects them or imposes extra handling.
'If you put out a blue-lidded cart on trash day, we'll treat it as trash and just collect it and take it to the landfill,' Archer said, describing how crews would enforce the new schedule. He said the change would not add a monthly fee for residents but would require better sorting at the curb.
The staff presentation also said the city will expand the plastics it accepts to types 1 through 7 (excluding plastic film such as grocery bags, which gear and contamination concerns cause the MRF to reject) and will emphasize that recyclables should be loose in the cart rather than bagged. Archer said the city will run a public information campaign that includes stickers on carts and other outreach.
Councilmembers asked how the change would work with holidays, bin replacement, and whether the higher contaminated-load fee would still apply after the switch. Archer and staff said holiday weeks would shift service (Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks would suspend recycling for that week and ask residents to hold materials), replacement bins can be requested through the city's customer service line or CitySinn portal, and the tipping/contamination fees would apply if loads remain contaminated.
Several councilmembers praised the program as an established community service. 'If we continue to bring out loads full of bags, then those will be rejected, and we'll have to pay the 150 a ton,' Councilmember Newstead said, urging residents to empty bags into carts and discard plastic film.
No formal vote was required on the presentation. Staff said they will return with any agreement details needed from the MRF operator and will begin public messaging ahead of the planned Nov. 3 implementation.
