MAYOR'S MESSAGE

Craig A. Stough 9/20/2007

"Recycling Report"

Since the early 1990's, the City of Sylvania has offered two recycling programs: recyclable materials and green yard waste. Both programs are successful at reducing the amount of garbage sent to the landfill. Both programs have been discussed recently at City Council, and I thought you might be interested in an update.

The City of Sylvania was one of the first in the 1990's to offer curbside recycling to its residents, so early that the service was not commercially available from private contractors. Instead, the City hired employees and purchased equipment for handling the pickup and recycling. By the mid 1990's, local refuse contractors began offering the service. Bids were taken and found to be more economical than continuing the in-house operation.

Since then, every other week recycling pickup by a private contractor was bid every two or three years. During last year's bidding, weekly pickup was proposed. At the recommendation of Utilities Committee Chairman Keith Haddad, weekly pickup was given a try. After one year, the results have been excellent, with a 20% increase in recycling tonnage recently reported to City Council. An additional 350 tons, or about 700,000 pounds of plastics, tin, aluminum, glass, cardboard and paper, have been diverted from landfills.

The City's green yard waste program is also a success. When the Ohio Legislature outlawed green waste being placed in garbage landfills in the 1990's, the City of Sylvania was one of the first to start its own program to collect and compost green yard waste.  The compost is then sold to landscape firms, golf courses, etc. Up to 40,000 bags of green yard waste are picked up and composted by the City of Sylvania each year and our program has been recognized by the Ohio EPA as a leading green waste recycler. City Council recently authorized the purchase of 69,300 green yard waste recycling bags, a full truckload, to keep the purchase price of the bags in line with previous purchases.

The Sylvania green yard waste recycling bags are sold at a higher cost than the actual manufacturing cost of the bags to include a service fee and help pay for the pick-up and recycling of the green yard waste.  This is a way for those residents wishing to have their grass clippings picked-up pay for the service without all Sylvania taxpayers paying for a service used by only a portion of our residents.  Branches are always picked up for free, and the City also has three free pick-ups for all green yard waste each year for spring, summer and fall yard cleanups. The next free pickup is scheduled for early November.

Other plain paper bags can be bought less expensively, but do not include the pickup and recycling service fee included in the retail cost of the Sylvania green refuse bags.  Residents have the option of purchasing the less expensive non-Sylvania bags and delivering them to a recycling center themselves, such as the center on Bancroft Street just west of US 23. The retail price for the Sylvania bags is $2.00 each and can be purchased from several area stores, the City Zoning office and the City Forestry Building.  The City sells the bags to the stores for $1.75 wholesale to allow them a profit for their participation, but these stores sometimes discount the retail price as they do with other goods they sell.

Annual stickers for green waste pick-up are also available for $30 and can be placed on the residents own trash can for pick-up throughout the year.  The price is prorated down as the year passes.