Mar 21, 2015 2 min read

What follows is based on two assumptions which may not be correct. The first is any garbage collection company selected by the city will be charged a fee based on weight or volume to use a landfill, and the company will receive a payment for the recyclables picked up every month.

On a recent recycling Monday in Washington, traveling the five blocks from McKinley Avenue to Jefferson Avenue on Third Street, I counted seven recycling bins on the curb. Either the residents along Third Street don’t consume anything packaged in plastic, tin, aluminum or glass, or their recyclables are in the regular garbage.

The result is more garbage and higher fees to use the landfill and less income from the sale of recyclables. Any garbage collector with additional dumping costs and less income from recycling will calculate those two items into the fees charged to the city, a cost which is then passed on to all residents.

Any proposed audit of the cost of garbage collection should include information for Washington City Council about the savings that could be realized if everyone recycled.

Recycling is the law, one which should be better enforced in the city no matter the savings. The Observer-Reporter could also help us recycle by periodically publishing what to recycle in our bins. Also, the selected garbage collector should inform us when they tell us what days garbage will be collected.

Martha M. Quimby

Washington