Curbside recycling coming to U.P. community
HOUGHTON — It’s been a long time coming but Houghton residents are about to get curbside recycling.
The Houghton City Council selected the bid from Waste Management at their regular meeting Wednesday. Several community members stressed their desire to see recyclables placed in bins or carts as opposed to bags.
Commercial recycling had also been called for but Houghton City Manager Eric Waara says this is a good plan for the city to start with.
Waara said, “For years, we’ve been hearing how you can’t do recycling here and we’re going to be doing it here going forward. Now, it’s certainly not a perfect system in many people’s eyes, but the way we’ve looked at it, we’ve got something that we can grow. Right now it’s financially sustainable for us, so it’s certainly a system we can grow going forward and possibly expand our service, enhance the service going forward, but you’ve got to walk before you learn to run.”
Waste Management will provide weekly single–stream curbside recycling. In addition to the same trash services currently provided for about $2.00 more per customer per month.
The issue came to the forefront last year when the company instituted a $4.00 per car load charge for recycling, creating an outcry by residents.
Curbside service is expected to be available starting in July.