City Council OKs new trash, recycling rates

FAYETTEVILLE — Utility bills for residents and businesses will look a little different in about three months. The City Council on Tuesday approved an ordinance applying new recycling and trash rates into the city’s code. The rates are the result of a study from MSW Consultants, which the council adopted during its Dec. 18 meeting. The ordinance the council approved Tuesday codified the recommended rates. The average increase across all city recycling and trash services is about 9 percent. The costs for recycling and trash service are merged into one rate. However, the rate increases vary depending on the nature of the service and customer. The rate for single-family home with a 96-gallon container, for instance, would go up from $20.98 per month to $22.03. Commercial recycling and trash rates for businesses vary widely, the lowest rate being $32.76 monthly to the highest rate of $786.24. Under the new structure, the range would change to $80.23 at the lowest and $840.12 at the highest. Multifamily developments already paying for recycling service will see a slight decrease in cost, and the rates for all other multifamily will stay the same. The city plans to make curbside recycling available to apartment complexes of 24 units or fewer and battleship recycling stations available to larger ones. In general, revenue from single-family homes will rise 5 percent, multifamily will go down 2 percent and commercial will go up nearly 16 percent. Rate prices for drop-box collection and temporary containers also will increase. The cost at transfer

stations for private garbage haulers will raise by about 20 percent, with the rate for haulers coming from outside the city going up and those for haulers within the city going down. Council Member Teresa Turk said she liked the study but wanted to see the fee for commercial recycling waived. Sustainability Director Peter Nierengarten said waiving the fees would be difficult because of the wide variety of services provided to commercial entities — cardboard and paper, glass, food waste composting and small bin collection. An amendment the council approved allows recycling collection at no additional cost for small businesses with containers similar to what residences have. Turk said she wanted to remove any impediments and incentivize businesses to produce as little trash as possible and recycle as much as possible. “I know the report is finished, but I would hope any future kind of study we do, maybe if it’s performed inhouse, we really consider that,” she said. The city last year adopted a recycling plan with a goal to divert 40 percent of waste from the landfill by 2027. It calls for expanded services, such as food waste composting, construction and demolition waste collection and generally making recycling available where it had not been before. City department heads said the rate increases are needed in order to provide the additional services. Rates have gone up incrementally for years, but a formal rate study has not been done since 1993. In other business, council members Sonia Gutierrez, Mark Kinion, Sloan Scroggin and Turk were sworn in Tuesday. Gutierrez replaces Adella Gray, who did not seek re-election, to represent Ward 1. Scroggin takes Justin Tennant’s spot after he also did not file for re-election in Ward 3. Turk defeated incumbent Ward 4 representative John La Tour in a December runoff election. Kinion is serving his third term for Ward 2. The council also unanimously selected Sarah Marsh as vice mayor, a position she served previously in 2016. Stacy Ryburn can be reached by email at sryburn@nwadg.com or on Twitter @stacyryburn.