By KRWG News
Las Cruces – The City of Las Cruces and the South Central Solid Waste Authority (SCSWA) will hold a public meeting with city residents on Monday, August 30th to discuss the possibility of moving forward with a city-wide curbside recycling program. The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. inside the Joint Utilities Center, 680 N. Motel Blvd. inside room #225.
The average Las Cruces resident pays $15.10 a month for trash pickup. Seniors pay an average of $11.29. There are two proposed options the City and SCSWA are looking at in order to implement curbside recycling:
Option one would increase the average residential bill by $1.89, bringing the total fee to $16.99 per month. Billing for seniors would be increased by $4.98, bringing their monthly bill to $16.27.
Option two would be an across-the-board increase of $2.59 for every residence, bringing the average residential bill to $17.69, and the bill for seniors to $13.88 per month.
City council could vote on the proposal as early as September. Recently recycling has become easier for residents. The SCSWA implemented single stream recycling (no more separating) at drop-off recycling sites in February 2010. City and county residents can drop off recyclables in bins located at six commercial sites, 17 schools, and eight community collection centers in the county. In addition:
The Las Cruces Public Schools recycling pilot program grew from six to 17 schools in one year.
Recycling drop-off bins are filled every day - tonnage increased from 15 to 80 tons per week when we switched to single stream.
The issue says Patrick Peck, Director of the SCSWA, " is not whether we're running out of landfill space. The issue is what kind of impact do we want to have on our region? Based on the enormous participation we have with drop-off recycling, our always full drop-off bins, and the number of residents asking for curbside this community wants curbside, which will dramatically increase our recycling rate. It's the best way we have locally to greatly reduce our solid waste
environmental impact."