Whitefish explores mandatory curbside recycling

The City of Whitefish plans to get community input as it looks to determine whether it should create a mandatory curbside recycling program, and thus likely do away with its central recycling site.

Public Works Director Craig Workman says there’s a number of factors when considering a central site or curbside recycling, but says the benefits of a curbside recycling program could be worth additional costs and time it would take to establish such a program.

“Creating a mandatory single-stream curbside recycling program would be a new endeavor for the City of Whitefish, and it is going to take considerable planning in order to ensure its success, but I do think it’s worth the extra time and effort to establish the program,” he said. “The implementation of residential curbside recycling is one of the key strategies recommended in the Climate Action Plan.”

Currently, the city has a centralized recycling site at the corner of Columbia Avenue and Railway Street. That property has been set aside for affordable housing, thus the city has been looking at creating a new centralized recycling site on city property on Monegan Road.

Following a work session late last year regarding seeking bids for managing a new recycling site, Council said it had an interest in exploring curbside recycling collection and asked staff to solicit for bids.

During a recent Council meeting options for moving forward were outlined, and Council subsequently directed staff to schedule a public hearing to gauge community input and draft an ordinance requiring mandatory curbside recycling for consideration.

Mayor John Muhlfeld said it’s important to engage citizen input regarding the recycling program.

“Where I grew up we probably had mandatory curbside recycling 35 years ago,” he said. “Here we are situated in the Crown of the Continent and we pride ourselves on being responsible stewards of our natural resources, it’s an absolute no-brainer that we at least draft an ordinance for mandatory curbside recycling and have a public hearing.”

Muhlfeld said the city’s current recycling site has been a “disaster” when members of the public misuse the site by dumping garbage there, and tying up property with another central site doesn’t make sense.

The city previously awarded its garbage collection contract to Republic Services, but then advertised separately for recycling services.

For the recycling program, the city received bids from three companies.

Republic Services provided a bid of $8,700 monthly to run the central recycling site, and a bid of $13.49 per customer per month for curbside service.

Evergreen Disposal’s bid was $8,250 monthly for the central site, and its bid was $9.75 per month for curbside.

Helena Recycling submitted a bid of $13.49 per month for curbside. It did not submit a bid for managing the central site.

Bids were for operating the program in 2021-22, and then bids increased slightly for providing service in subsequent years through 2024.

Development of the new centralized recycling site is also estimated to cost the city $185,000 above the annual management cost.

Workman said in order to fund the option of the new site, the city would have to use a dedicated property tax mill.

The first year to support the cost of service and construction would need about 6.83 mills to support it. Based upon this a home valued at $400,000 would see an increase of about $37 and a commercial business with a market value of $3.8 million would see an increase of about $494 on tax bills for fiscal year 2022. In subsequent years, the amount would decrease to roughly $15 for a house and $190 for commercial businesses FY24.

For curbside recycling under the low bidder of Republic Services, the cost for curbside service at each residence would be $75 per year. The charge for service would be mandatory regardless of use, which is similar to the city’s garbage service policy.

Helena Recycling did not include a separate cost for the management of the central site as part of their curbside proposal, but the company suggested building a recycling center at its own expense in exchange for 2.5 acres of land from the city at a zero-cost lease.

Workman said while the proposal from Helena Recycling would require all residents to pay for curbside recycling, the new facility would also have bins for public drop-off of recyclable materials if they choose not to use the curbside service.

After reviewing the numbers, Councilor Frank Sweeney said he wanted community input on whether they would support curbside recycling, but noted that the current central site is often littered with debris and a place where people drop off trash.

“It’s time for us to deal with the problem and make it more convenient for people to recycle, and the way we do that is to provide curbside recycling,” he said. “If it becomes mandatory then it becomes affordable for the community, more efficient and it becomes part of our culture.”

Councilor Rebecca Norton said she would like to see a system where people could pay for curbside recycling and a central site that would allow visitors to use it for recycling.

Workman walked Council through some of the pros and cons of both a central recycling site and a curbside recycling program.

Positives for the central site include a lower annual cost after the first year, and it would be available to Whitefish residents, businesses and events for use. On the other hand, there is “considerable” cost for construction of a new site that would also need future maintenance, the new location could decrease usage of the site, there’s higher likelihood of contamination, it requires daily opening and closing, and could require an attendant, and out of city residents and businesses who use the site are not paying for it like Whitefish property owners.

Positives of the curbside recycling program are that it would not require construction of a new central site, it has a higher probability of capturing recycling and it would be easier to address contamination through the program.

On the negative side, it would be residential service only, it has a higher cost to residents, the program would require an extensive public education campaign, residential customers would be charged regardless of use, which is a complaint received about garbage service, and the recycling could be a bear attractant if left outside.

The public hearing on the program could come before Council as early as May 17.