A waste management consultant was in Wrangell recently to present a potential recycling plan to the community.
Project Manager Richard Herztberg said Wrangell should move forward with commingled recycling.
“For residences, that would be a cart similar to what you’re using for your trash; it would just be labeled for recycling. So you could mix your cardboard, and your newspaper, and your cans, and your mixed paper and plastic bottles, and your jars, and that sort of thing. Everything would go into one container,” Hertzberg said.
If Wrangell were to follow this plan, recyclables would be handled by the same company that puts Wrangell’s trash in a landfill in Washington.
Hertzberg said Wrangell would not have to purchase new garbage trucks. The Public Works department already uses two automated one-person trucks for trash collection that could also pick up recycling bins.
To start a recycling program, Wrangell would need funding for recycling carts for and a baler.
But Hertzberg said Wrangell would also receive revenue for recycling, which could possibly lower the cost of the borough’s solid waste collection.
“So the more participation you get–and we hope that would be pretty high because it’s convenient–the more the economics are going to be favorable.”
Borough Manager Jeff Jabusch told the Wrangell Borough Assembly there may be some other costs to starting a recycling program that are not included in the draft plan.
It is not clear whether recycling would raise current trash collection rates.
Hertzberg hopes to complete a final plan by the end of the year, and he thinks it would take another two years to implement the program. The borough assembly would also have to approve the plan.
