McMinnville exploring the launch of a new free curbside recycling program to increase waste diversion and provide a more convenient service for residents.
Public Works Director Lyndon Bussell said the city is currently seeking public input through a survey to determine if there is widespread interest in the service. Bussell said the department has been researching how recycling can help reduce the amount of trash sent to landfills while allowing materials to be reused. Bussell said the survey has already seen some 250 responses.
“We’ve been researching recycling and diversion and how it can not just help with, you know, not not bringing trash to landfills and things like that, but you know, those things get reused and it’s just it’s a good service to provide the citizens of McMinnville,” Bussell said. “And you know, you don’t do it for the money, you do it because it’s the right thing to do.”
Bussell said the proposed service would be free for residents, whereas the current garbage pickup costs $18 per month. Bussell said the recycling would be collected biweekly in a different colored cart and transported to a sorting facility in Nashville.
“It’s absolutely important because you want to divert a lot of this material from our from landfills and you want to use landfills as little as humanly possible for pollution and other environmental concerns,” Bussell said. “And your cardboard and your cans and your paper and things of that nature is very, very easily recycled and turns into a lot of materials that we use today.”
The program would utilize a single-stream system for plastic, paper, aluminum, tin, and cardboard. Bussell said glass would not be included in the program because the processing facility is not equipped to handle it. Bussell said some 10 percent of recycled items are contaminated and unusable.
“You have to clean the bottles out and the cans out,” Bussell said. “You have to take the plastic or like the little plastic paper that goes around the water bottles. You have to take that off. So there’s some roles on the citizens as well to help keep the contamination low so that the recyclables actually do get recycled and don’t get rejected.”
Bussell said the city already has the necessary infrastructure, including garbage trucks and trailers, funded through the solid waste program. Bussell said the department is currently working through the logistics of how to implement the program, starting with a pilot phase.
“Some pilot program where ‘x’ amount of citizens will get a recycling can and we’ll see what the contamination looks like and see what recycling looks like, how many tons are we going to get, things along that nature is really what we probably plan to do for the in the future,” Bussell said.
McMinnville plans to keep the public survey open through next week before issuing a statement to address common questions from residents.