LAKE WORTH RECYCLING GETS MIXED REACTION

LAKE WORTH — Richard Migliacci owns two properties in Lake Worth and lives in the city parttime.

He’s heard about the city’s decision to move away from a single-stream recycling option to two recycling bins as Lake Worth restarts its partnership with the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County on Oct. 1.

Migliacci, 45, even started a Facebook stream on the issue, asking, “Why would the city of Lake Worth go from a sealed tote to an open bin? Don’t they realize the animals will tear through it? Not to mention the smell because there’s no cover on it.”

He told The Palm Beach Post that Lake Worth is going backward, not forward.

“It is not going to be good and it’s not gonna be what they think it’s gonna be,” he said.

Jamie Brown, the city’s public services director, disagrees.

In 2008, Waste Management offered a single-stream recycling option and said it would pay the city $10 a ton.

“Up to that point, Waste Management wasn’t paying for recycling, so the city made the choice back then to move to a single-stream option,” Brown said. “It’s easier for people to recycle and we get paid for it. We were the only city in Palm Beach County that made that conversion.”

Fast-forward 10 years, residents, Brown said, have been using single-stream recycling as a second container, putting regular trash inside and putting recycling materials on top of it.

“When you use the (type of ) machines that we do, you don’t really know what’s in the can,” Brown said. “You’re assuming it’s recycling.”

The contamination rate was around 39 percent, which Brown said is too high.

“People were kind of moving away from a single-stream and instead of waste management paying us $10 a ton, we would now have to pay them $85 a ton,” Brown said. “It’s only a $95 switch in the wrong direction. That’s just not financially feasible. Technically, they didn’t cancel the contract, but they made it so ridiculous.”

The city said that more than a third of loads were contaminated and unable to be cleanly recycled, so Lake Worth opted to re-partner with the SWA.

Ben Kerr, Lake Worth’s spokesman, said reaction among residents has been mixed.

“Obviously, people like the ease of the single-stream recycling, but a lot of people are very recycling conscious and understand that a 30 percent success rate is not very good,” Kerr said.

Lake Worth said the SWA has operated a two-bin recycling system since the late 1980s by keeping paper separated from dirty food and drink containers. This ensures that the paper is recovered very clean and has a higher value, the city said, while wasting as little as possible.

Becky Robinson, the SWA’s public affairs administrator, said Lake Worth reached out to the agency earlier this year.

“Lake Worth is the only municipality in Palm Beach County that doesn’t partner with the Solid Waste Authority, so bringing them back in and having the whole county under our review is in our best interests,” Robinson said.

“Based on what we know from Lake Worth’s previous contractor, it seems to be in their best interests as well.”