The Westbrook City Council, resuming an ongoing debate Monday, now wants to know all the options and costs for curbside recycling.
The implementation of a recycling program in the city has been stalled due to a disagreement between councilors and Mayor Bruce Chuluda about how the program should be funded. Last year, Chuluda proposed a pay-per-bag trash collection program, where the cost of trash bags would offset the cost of curbside recycling collection and add an incentive to throw away less trash, and consequently recycle more.
The council removed that program from the budget and inserted a $250,000 voluntary curbside recycling program, which the mayor subsequently vetoed. At a meeting in December, when the recently reelected City Council met to discuss goals for the term, recycling emerged as a high priority.
At a Committee of the Whole meeting Monday, councilors requested the administration provide comprehensive bids for all possible programs the city could put in place – a list City Administrator Jerre Bryant said would take about a month to compile.
Westbrook now provides drop-off recycling at three locations in the city – the armory on Stroudwater Street, the municipal parking lot at the corner of Mechanic Street and William Clarke Drive and the Prides Corner Church on Pride Street.
The drop-off locations have offered single-stream recycling since July 2007. According to Bryant, the city’s recycling rate increased from 6 percent in 2006 to 8 percent in 2007. Bryant estimates that the rate has been at about 10 percent over the past six months.
At Monday’s meeting, Sarah Wojcoski, recycling coordinator for Scarborough and Saco, and Stuart Axelrod, general manager at Pine Tree Waste, presented the advantages of automated curbside trash and recycling.
The automated curbside trash and recycling program would add an estimated $671,000 to the city’s trash and recycling costs which are currently about $1 million, according to Bryant. Bryant also estimated that the program would bump the city’s recycling rate up to 20 percent.
With the automated pickup program, each residence is issued two 65-gallon carts, one for trash and one for recycling.
Councilor John O’Hara, who called himself “a pay-per-bag guy,” said he was concerned about where all the carts would go considering the number of multi-unit dwellings in the city. In Saco and Scarborough, where the program has been successful, there aren’t as many multi-unit dwellings.
Councilor Drew Gattine offered up the solution for the city to reconsider its policy about picking up trash at dwellings with less than 10 units – also a debate the council has had before.
Though Bryant said he didn’t know whether reconsidering the policy would be a solution, the number of carts that would be on the street would pose a problem for the city.
Council President Brendan Rielly said the automated program appealed to him.
“I hate pay per bag,” he said. “I think it’s the worst of all possible choices.”
Rielly then requested a list of all the options.
“I think we need to get all the numbers out there,” he said.
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