FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) – Fort Wayne City Council passed a resolution that will increase the number of single-cart recycling units at homes in the City of Fort Wayne.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, City Council approved, in a 9-0 vote, $345,000 to purchase 6,000 more large and small size recycling bins to be given to areas of town not yet part of the program.
Currently, 73 percent of Fort Wayne residents participate in the program. In Mayor Tom Henry’s (D) 2012 State of the City, the mayor pressed residents to increase that number to 80 percent. In addition to funding the increase in carts, the city has also utilized advertising opportunities with a handful of billboards around the city to encourage recycling.
The $345,000 price tag is something that public information officer Frank Suarez says should be paid for relatively quickly.
“We believe that the amount invested in these carts will certainly pay for itself, within a year, year and a half because of the fact that we're going to be sharing in those revenues. So it's really a good thing. Plus, we're reducing the amount of garbage that goes into the landfill.”
Those revenues were large for the City of Fort Wayne. They made close to $500,000 in the program’s first year, 2011. Suarez says they expect that number to increase in 2012 as more recyclables are collected and as more residents become participants in the program.
Recycling Issues
Some viewers have expressed concerns with the recycling carts, saying that not all of their recyclables are being collected by National Serve-All trucks. Suarez says residents who walk down their driveways to find half-full carts, even after a truck has stopped, need to call 3-1-1, the city’s hotline.
After calling and filing a complaint, 3-1-1 will call National Serve-All to alert them of the issue. From there, National Serve-All will come back to the home the following day to pull the rest of the recycling.
The city also advises against stuffing lots of flat cardboard in the bins as the cardboard tends to expand and act as a barrier preventing recyclables on the bottom from being dumped.
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