As early as June, those who receive curbside trash pickup services in Logan County and its four cities, will see a recycling tote delivered to their doorstep. The tote will look exactly like the one used for trash, except it will have a different color lid.
The Logan County Fiscal Court approved to accept a bid from Scott Waste Services Tuesday, for an exclusive contract for collection, transportation and disposal of solid waste in the unincorporated areas of Logan County and the cities of Adairville, Auburn, Lewisburg and Russellville. This bid will include curbside co-mingling recycling. Co-mingling means you do not have to separate or bail your recyclables. A customer will just drop them all in the proper container and wheel them out to the curb the same as they do their trash.
Scott Waste has been the sole service in the county for the past few years, however, the city of Russellville had their own contract separately from the county and three cities. By combining the customers into one unified contract, Scott said it would offer recycling as well. There will be a 75 cent increase for the unincorporated areas of the county and for the city of Russellville. The increase for Adairville, Auburn and Lewisburg is less at 45 cents. The contract will run through 2020.
Magistrate Thomas Bouldin began working towards a unified agreement after pushing for a pilot program that offered curbside recycling for 350 plus customers over a year ago. Most of those were in Bouldin’s district. The program proved to be very successful, prompting Bouldin to push for recycling to be offered to everyone who took waste service.
At this time it is not mandatory to have trash service in the unincorporated areas of the county, but it is mandatory in the four cities.
“I couldn’t be more pleased that Logan County has made the progressive decision to implement county-wide curbside recycling. It’s a great example of how citizens can work with city and county officials to create programs that positively impact our community and our future,” said Bouldin. “I’m especially proud that Logan County is leading the way for other counties across Kentucky as they consider developing their own recycling programs.”
Bouldin also commented on the youth of the county, saying he believed leading by example would teach our children to be environmentally responsible.
Pete Recker, a manager for Scott Waste, said Logan County was the second to begin a county-wide recycling program in the state, Pulaski being the first.
The county and four cities will be receiving a cutback from the sale of the recyclables. It is not expected to be much. Since 2012, when the pilot program kicked off for 350 customers, the county has gotten a little less than $2,000. What ever is generated will be split among the county and four cities on a percentage basis.
The following are price comparisons to what customers paid before and what they will be paying soon.
Unincorporated areas of the county will go from $13.86 per month to $14.59
The city Russellville will go from $8.91 per month to $9.64
The cities of Adairville, Auburn and Lewisburg will go from $11.97 per month to $12.42
Commercial pickup (dumpsters) stays the same, accept for Russellville where there will be a 9 cent increase per month. Russellville’s mayor Mark Stratton intends to use the city’s percentage of funds generated from the sale of recyclables to soften the increase to customers.
The increase, says Recker, is to offset the cost of purchasing the recycling totes that will be distributed to the customers. There are 9,500 customers in the county and cities. The totes cost between $60 and $75 a piece.
Each customer receiving waste services will get a recycling tote, which will be picked up the third week of the month in lieu of trash pickup. The containers hold recyclable materials like cardboard, plastics, paper products and aluminum.
Some concerns have been expressed by customers about excess trash piling up because of the third week when the recycling is picked up instead. Tommy Mosley, who works for Scott Waste, said that by organizing waste and using the recycling tote customers will have room left in their waste tote and should not have an overflow of garbage.
Judge Executive Logan Chick agreed with Bouldin about the effects this decision will have on the children of the county. “I think this move made teaches our children the right thing to do in the world we live in,” said Chick.
One of the benefits of the unification said Chick, is showing the cooperation the county and cities have and the willingness to all work together for something good.
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