Thomas MacMIllan Photo
With the approval of the Board of Aldermen, the city will enter into the commercial recycling business.
For an annual fee of $225, the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW) will pick up recycling from commercial properties and from apartment buildings with more than six units. That service will be made available with the passage of a proposed ordinance amendment currently before the Board of Aldermen.
The proposal won the unanimous approval of the aldermanic Finance Committee on Monday night. John Prokop (pictured), head of the DPW, detailed the plan for aldermen.
The city currently offers trash and recycling pickup only for residential properties of fewer than six units. By amending Section 17 – 201.4 of the Code of Ordinances, the city will be able to charge a fee for recycling pickup at all residential and commercial properties in the city. Trash pickup would still be limited to residential properties of less than six units.
The amendment would also allow the DPW to charge a fee for the registration — with stickers — of all commercial trash receptacles. Read more about that plan — and other trash ordinances amendments in the works—here.
Read the proposed amendment here.
The new fees are designed to encourage recycling in New Haven, Prokop told the aldermen. Under state and municipal statutes, everyone is supposed to be recycling, he said. But 80 percent of businesses in New Haven don’t.
The DPW doesn’t necessarily want to get into the business of recycling, but it wants to make the service more available, he said.
The city has not previously offered recycling to businesses and larger apartment buildings, because it was assumed that commercial haulers were taking care of it, Prokop said. But that’s not the case.
East Rock Aldermen Justin Elicker raised concerns that recycling could become a burden for the DPW if there is a flood of interest in the service.
Prokop assured him that the DPW could handle it. He said the department could offer single-stream recycling without needing to buy any new equipment.