CORALVILLE — After a series of delays, a Coralville program where consumers no longer have to group their recyclables by type of material is set to begin June 3.
The city will join neighbors Iowa City and North Liberty, plus cities in Linn County, that offer single-stream recycling. Under Coralville’s current program, residents at single-family homes and duplexes are required to group their recycling into paper, plastic, metal or flattened corrugated cardboard. But soon, all they’ll have to do is separate recyclable materials from the rest of their garbage and toss them all into a bin.
The program initially was planned to start in March, but was pushed back after delays in receiving a new truck, said Eric Fisher, Coralville’s streets and solid waste superintendent. Fisher said the truck originally was scheduled to arrive in October 2023, but was delayed to December and eventually to May.
The new program will cost the city roughly $600,000, with funding coming from the city’s waste utility budget, $223,000 from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources in a grant and low-interest loan, and a $73,600 grant from The Recycling Partnership.
What’s happened since
The city received the new recycling truck Tuesday and will be providing its residents with new 65-gallon recycling carts starting the week of May 15.
Fisher said residents will continue to use their existing bins until May 31. Once the switch is made, residents can choose to have their old bins picked up by the city, or keep them at home for personal use. Fisher said old bins turned in will be recycled.
City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said nothing else is changing for Coralville residents, saying “we’ll do pick up at the same time and fees will stay the same.”
Residents already have received outreach about the change, but Hayworth said information packets explaining more about it and what residents can expect will be included in the carts as they’ve being delivered to residents. These packets explain what can and can’t be recycled, plus a calendar showing what days won’t have pick up.
A plus for staff
The new truck is made specifically for single-stream recycling and is automated, which Fisher said would speed up the process. Currently, his staff need to leave their trucks to pick up and sort the recyclables into the trucks.
The new truck and system will eliminate that work, so the staff would remain in the truck — something Fisher said is especially useful when weather conditions are poor.
“We've had several worker injuries in the past several years of workers falling,” Fisher said. “Now the driver will be within his truck all the time just running the joystick, just like we do with garbage, so they're never out in the elements.”
Fisher said the recycling pickup will go from three trucks and three drivers to one truck and one driver for the entire city. He added that collection days won’t be changing for residents, but the exact time for pick up on that day may change.
Long-awaited program
Ellen Hable, Coralville deputy city administrator, said a single-stream program has been one of the most highly requested things to the city, but it has been a long process.
“It's something we've been talking about generally for a while, and then a couple of years ago, we had to start looking at replacing a recycling truck and had been putting money away and reserves for that,” she said.
Fisher said he purchased the truck in February 2022, but delays meant it wasn’t delivered until May. Hable said the delays likely were caused supply shortages in the construction of the truck.
“We feel really fortunate that we can roll it out for the whole city at once, we think that's a really positive aspect for us that we don't have to phase it in,” she said. “We think that really makes it a much, much cleaner transition that everybody gets it on the same day, same week.”
City partners with Recycling Partnership
A key partner has been The Recycling Partnership, a non-government organization that has worked with Coralville to assist in the rollout.
“They've done it all across the country, rolling out single stream projects in a lot of communities, so they have the knowledge, they have the staff,” Fisher said. “They've helped us design these cards, all of our information packets we send out, they've helped us do all that.”
Keysha Burton, director of community program at the partnership, said the organization’s main role is to assist municipalities with increasing access to recycling. This is done through grant funding along with support and resources to communities.
Of the $73,600 grant from the organization, Burton said $4,000 to $5,000 will go toward outreach and education. The rest will be used to purchase the new recycling carts.
The partnership translated the education and outreach information into Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and French. Burton said it was important to make translations available to ensure equitable access for all residents.
“We can assume that people speak English, but when you look at the census, it's clear that we are a diverse country,” she said. “And so if we want people within our community to participate, we need to meet them where they're at.”
Courtesy : thegazette.com