Under proposed plan, businesses will get to choose whether to participate in city recycling program

Recycling materials are pulled up a conveyor to be sent through a complex sorting system on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016 at the Hamm's Recycling Facility, 26195 Linwood Road, that processes Lawrence's recyclable materials.

When the city of Lawrence rolled out its residential recycling service a few years ago, all residents were required to pay for the service. As the city prepares to expand the service to businesses, the plan is looking quite different.

At their meeting Tuesday, Lawrence city commissioners will consider a pilot program for expanding the city’s single-stream recycling to businesses on a voluntary basis, but with fees perhaps higher than some expected.

The proposed business plan differs from the city’s residential service, in which all households pay a small but mandatory recycling fee whether they recycle or not. At the time, the thought was that the model would result in more people choosing to recycle.

City officials aren’t recommending that model for business recycling, but they are recommending fees that are much higher than residential rates. The fees for the commercial recycling pilot program are more than $100 per month for some businesses, and are set to recover all costs for the city as long as 15 percent of businesses sign up, according to city calculations.

Solid waste officials said it doesn’t make sense to use the mandatory model for businesses. Solid Waste Division Manager Kathy Richardson said that unlike residential customers, there can be vast differences in the amount of recycling generated by businesses, with some very small businesses producing hardly anything. Richardson said to make those small companies participate wouldn’t be a fair system.

“For commercial, there is a lot of variation in the types of businesses and how much they generate,” Richardson said.

Richardson said that argument can likewise apply to very large businesses. For instance, she said some industrial businesses produce large amounts of recyclable material on a daily basis, and they work directly with recycling brokers.

Essentially, the city’s service would be an option for the businesses that fall somewhere in the middle. The proposal is to pilot two areas, downtown and south Lawrence.

As currently proposed, the pilot service would cost a downtown business about $132 per month for six days per week of pickup. Fees for businesses in south Lawrence — the pilot area is mostly on south Iowa Street and 23rd Street — would be about $44 per month for collection twice per week. For both areas, customers would need to purchase a 95-gallon recycling cart and could pay more to have additional carts. The city contracts with the Hamm recycling facility for its single-stream residential service and is charged per ton of material.

For those businesses not large enough to work with recycling brokers, Richardson said some businesses pay a fee to drop off small loads at the Hamm recycling plant and/or pay for pickup services, such as those provided by nonprofits such as Cans for the Community and Community Living Opportunities. As for concerns the city may be competing with those private services, she said a lot of businesses have requested citywide single-stream commercial recycling program, and those private services don’t have the capacity to expand to all businesses in town.

“They don’t have the big collection vehicles to collect large amounts of recyclables,” Richardson said. “Although there are businesses signed up with CLO, others feel there should be more options for that curbside pickup of single-stream.”

The city’s solid waste department came up with the business proposal for a pilot single-stream commercial recycling service at the urging of some downtown businesses, residents and local leaders. Commissioner Matthew Herbert is one such leader, and previously told the Journal-World that he’s observed large amounts of recyclable materials being thrown into city trash dumpsters downtown.

If the Commission approves the proposal for the pilot program, it would run for eight months, May through December.

Richardson also emphasized that the pilot program is just that, and allows the city to see what the demand for single-stream commercial recycling service is and potentially make adjustments in response.

The City Commission will convene at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St.