BARTOW -- If you don't
have access to weekly county curbside recycling service, you soon
may.
Beginning in October, Polk County will expand curbside
recycling to 65,000 additional homes in unincorporated Polk
County.
Existing recycling customers will see some changes, too,
said Ed Sparks, Polk's recycling coordinator.
The new bins will be
larger and the county will be accepting more types of recyclable
materials.
The county's curbside recycling program accepts
newspaper, clear glass, No. 1 and No. 2 plastic containers, and aluminum
and steel cans.
Beginning Oct. 1, the county also will accept all
colors of glass, magazines, telephone books, office paper, flattened boxes
and junk mail.
Another change will involve how people leave their
recyclables at the curb. County officials want residents to bundle or bag
newspapers to keep them from blowing around and set them beside or on top
of their recycling containers to make room for the other
recyclables.
Polk County began curbside recycling in July 1999 for
45,000 of what was then 103,000 residential garbage customers. Today, the
service is available to 60,000 customers. Beginning Oct. 1, the county
will serve 125,000 customers.
Sparks said he hopes to improve the
county's recycling volume through the expanded curbside collection and
more aggressive marketing to residential and commercial
customers.
About half of the homeowners in unincorporated Polk
County participate in the curbside recycling program.
Sparks said
he thinks public education, rather than more regulations, is the key to
increasing participation.
"I'm going to get on radio talk shows.
We're going to be running television spots, billboard ads and putting
articles in the newspapers," he said.
The overall program for
publicizing changes in the county's new recycling and garbage collection
procedures will come before the County Commission on Wednesday for
approval.
Sparks said the county will continue to operate its
drop-off sites to serve residents in apartment complexes, mobile home
parks and other multi-family residential developments that won't be served
by curbside pickup. The locations of the drop-off centers may change to
accommodate demand.
Polk County recycles 5,000 tons of plastic,
paper, steel and aluminum each month at the Recovered Material Processing
Center, operated by SP Recycling at the North Central Landfill.
"We
have capacity for 10,000 tons a month," Sparks said.
In addition to
being ecologically sound, recycling helps the county's bottom line, Sparks
said.
The more the county recycles, the more room is left in the
landfill for residential trash.
That's significant because landfill
space is expensive to construct. The 59-acre addition already under
construction will cost $28 million.
Under its contract with SP
Recycling, the county rents the facility to the company and receives a
share of revenue from selling recyclables -- $137,000 this fiscal year.
Sparks said he expects the county's share to reach $250,000 by next
year.
The county's new five-year, $73.4 million contract with
Florida Refuse features other changes.
For one thing, you may see
trucks with a different company logo picking up your
garbage.
Florida Refuse, a division of Republic Services, will take
over all residential garbage collection in unincorporated Polk
County.
Waste Management had been collecting garbage in parts of
the county under the old contract.
Company officials say they plan
to provide better service with the help of a computer program that will
track pickups.
The computer program shows maps that depict where
each garbage truck has been and when it's there, said Mark Talbott,
general manager at Florida Refuse.
Rick Masillo, the company's area
manager for the Route Smart program, said drivers will be given maps and
directions so they know where to turn and where houses are to avoid
missing any pickups.
The maps are updated regularly to reflect
opening of new subdivisions, he said.
Florida Refuse is dividing
Polk County into smaller routes per truck to accommodate growth in
specific geographic areas.
Interim Solid Waste Director Brooks
Stayer said the new system will allow county officials to track mistakes
to improve service.
Along with the improved tracking technology,
Stayer said the new contract includes sanctions for mistakes.
"The
old contract allowed mistakes. But each time there's a mistake under this
contract, it will be a $100 fine for the first one, and if there's a
repeat (at the same address) it will go up to $200," he said.
Yard
waste pickups also will change.
Florida Refuse will provide
once-a-week, unlimited yard-waste collection, provided trees limbs and
other materials are reduced to a manageable size.
The previous
contract limited yard-waste pickups to 3 cubic yards per
week
Source: www.theledger.com
- CBCSD and Members Participated and Suggested on the Project for Technical Regulation on Low-carbon Pilot Community
- CBCSD and Members Participated in the APEC Cooperation Network Construction Forum of Green Supply Chain
- Calculation Method of CO2 Emissions in Petroleum and Natural Gas Exploitation Enterprises & Calculation Method of CO2 Emissions in Water Network of Chemical Enterprises
- CBCSD Attended the Workshop for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development and Delivered Introductions
- WBCSD: Tackling the Challenge, How to Make Informed Choices on Forest Product?
- The National New-Type Urbanization Plan Released, Board Members of CBCSD Help the Sustainable Development of Cities
- Board members of CBCSD Actively Participated in the Carbon Trading and International Climate Change Process
- Two industrial Standards Compiled by CBCSD Passed Examination
- Widespread Use of the Achievements Businesses Energy Saving and Greenhouse Gas Management
- CBCSD held Chemical industry enterprise value chain (range 3) greenhouse gas emissions, accounting and reporting guidelines
