The city of Denison plans to continue recycling services even after the contract with its current provider expires. City staff recently announced plans to contract with Republic Services when its ongoing contract with Waste Connections ends early next year.

The council discussed the future of the program is June as a part of the annual budget retreat as Waste Connections had announced it did not wish to extend its contract with the city into 2023. At the time, city officials said high contamination rates had hindered efforts and led to the majority of loads being sent to the landfill instead of being recycled.

“As you may recall, our existing contract with waste connections is set to expire the 31st of January next year,” Assistant Public Works Director Ervin Pariera said. “We spoke to council a little bit about this during our council budget workshop in June this year and we heard loud and clear from council that if at all possible we should try to keep curbside recycling going.”

As of August, the city has 8,954 customers who could receive recycling services, but city officials were uncertain how many have opted out.

Following the budget retreat, city officials considered several options on how to move forward with the program. Bidding efforts returned a single viable option and officials said they were afraid they’d lose that option if they decided to rebid the contract. Officials also considered transitioning the program to an opt in subscription service or operating it under the city’s banner. There were also discussions of transitioning the program to a centralized connection station, similar to Sherman’s recycling service, but limits related to transportation requirements led the city to determine this was not viable.

Instead, the city decided to accept the viable bid from Republic Services.

Under the new contract, the residential customer will see the recycling fee increase from $25.33 to $28.98. Staff noted that this is in line with other increases to waste services, including an expected increase to Texoma Area Solid Waste fees in the near future.

Atteberry said he is hopeful that the new contract can help with the city through its extensive education component. Through education campaigns, city officials hope that contamination rates from unrecyclable materials being mixed in can be lowered.

Rick Bernas, representing Republic Services, said the company has options for school and resident education that can be put in place ahead of the change over after Jan. 31, 2023.

Republic Services is currently the 5th largest recycling fleet operator in the U.S., Bernas said. Locally, the company operates out of a 76,000-square-foot facility in Plano. The company plans to roll out several new features over the next year including an app that will allow residents to track their recycling truck on pickup days. The first of several new polymer centers aimed at providing plastic service is expected to open in Las Vegas. A Texas center is expected to open in 2025.