The City of Pensacola is evaluating changes to recycling and sanitation services for City Sanitation customers to improve services and minimize ineffective recycling efforts.
- The City of Pensacola Sanitation Services Department currently uses ECUA’s Materials Recycling Facility to process recyclable materials from City Sanitation customers. Starting Oct. 1, the city will no longer use ECUA’s facility and will end citywide curbside recycling for City Sanitation customers.
After Oct. 1, the City of Pensacola will continue to work proactively to determine an effective recycling solution with ECUA, which may include opt-in curbside recycling services and/or a staffed drop-off recycling facility in partnership with ECUA.
- The City of Pensacola will continue to offer the recycling drop-off center on Summit Boulevardafter Oct. 1, providing containers for residents to continue to recycle eligible items including cardboard, plastic, glass and more.
The decision to end curbside recycling was the result of several factors, including:
- Recycling from City Sanitation customers averaged more than 50% contamination when delivered to ECUA’s recycling facility, resulting in the loads being rejected and taken to the landfill instead of being recycled as intended.
- Due to rising costs associated with recycling, ECUA increased its drop-off rates for municipal customers including the City of Pensacola’s Sanitation Department. In order to continue mandatory curbside recycling service for all customers, the city would have needed to increase rates for all City Sanitation customers.
- This change will allow the city to evaluate the effectiveness of recycling and determine the most viable solution. The city’s goal is to ensure that customers who want to recycle can have confidence that their efforts are as effective as possible.
What are the next steps?
- The city is working on details for a one-year pilot program that will be implemented after curbside recycling ends on Oct. 1, 2023.
- This pilot program may include opt-in curbside recycling services, or the option for customers to have curbside garbage collection twice a week in lieu of recycling.
- Additional details will be announced to customers as they are finalized, and before the changes are implemented. Please stay tuned to the City of Pensacola website and Facebookfor updates. Customers will also receive information in the mail prior to implementation.
The public’s patience and understanding are appreciated as Mayor D.C. Reeves and City of Pensacola leadership continue to work proactively on recycling solutions with ECUA.
For more information, please visit cityofpensacola.com/recyclinginfo.
If anyone opposes the end of recycling in the city, the only moment to be heard will be during the budget hearings on September 6th and 13th at 5:30 pm. Councilmembers must vote twice to adopt next year’s annual budget that includes an end to recycling. During the August 8th council budget workshop Councilman Bare did ask Mayor Reeves who had made the decision to end recycling and when. Councilwoman Patton asked why the FY 2024 Proposed Budget being reviewed that day provided for a recycling program in the next fiscal year starting on October 1st. (Of note, Bare and Patton are the only two councilmembers with legal training.) Reeves said that he made the decision on his own. Amy Lovoy said that the budget document was not up to date because the decision was made after the budget was posted online. That would have been on July 18th, 22 days prior. All that aside, the budget document is full of flaws to include a legal error that I have been pointing out for years. Even council staff was shocked at how bad it was. I was told the executive branch budget document formally presented to the legislative branch contained so many errors because it was only “a draft.” Bad answer. Reeves didn’t seem to know what was in the budget document to include the numbers. City residents who did not watch the budget workshop might be interested to know that for all he talked about sanitation Reeves appeared to say nothing meaningful. He presented no data or facts in support of his unilateral decision. He didn’t even try to explain why ECUA can provide a higher level of services at lower cost but the city cannot do the same. At one point, Reeves suggested that city residents may lie when they call to complain that their trash cans are not emptied on schedule. Bare had raised the issue earlier. Reeves dismissed the large number of complaints saying that many of the city residents had forgotten to put out their cans on time. Actually, I and others could write a small book about how often sanitation fails to pick up the trash on time. During the budget workshop, we learned that the sanitation rate already being increased this year will go up even more next year to pay for pay raises for sanitation workers and even more to pay for new sanitation trucks. Sanitation & Fleet Management Director Fred Crenshaw said “the trucks are wearing out faster than we can replace them.” Sanitation drivers have told me for years that their own department very poorly maintains the trucks.