Curbside recycling could be offered in Mustang within the next few months, but there are hurdles to clear before the program can begin.
Mustang City Council will be asked during its Aug. 18 meeting to support plans to move forward with a voluntary curbside recycling program. Interim City Manager Mike Rutledge said before the program can begin, the city must find 500 households who will commit to taking part for one year and paying an additional fee of $5.50 per month.
Those are the requirements Oklahoma Environmental Management Authority, the city's new trash service provider, laid out for starting curbside recycling.
Rutledge said there could be one more hitch. Manufacturing has slumped because of the recession, pulling plastic commodity prices down with it. As plastics prices fell, profits raised through recycling programs have also fallen.
Rutledge said he is concerned OEMA may not be able to afford the curbside recycling program in the proposed plan now that plastics prices have declined.
“The cost of recycling — there is not as much demand as there was because manufacturing is down nationwide,” he said. “Those plastics have to be able to be resold, so they can at least break even and make a profit out of it.”
Debbie Harrison, OEMA community relations director, said in some cases the authority has paid the plastics company to take materials from community recycling programs. Mustang and other communities have recycling drop-off locations, but none of OEMA's partners have curbside recycling programs.
“We have not suspended recycling opportunities in communities that have volunteer recycling centers,” she said. “Hopefully the market will recover, and we won't be forced to suspend those volunteer recycling efforts.”
OEMA does have one other community considering a curbside recycling program. El Reno is working to recruit 500 households to sign onto a pilot program at a rate of $5 per month. Harrison said so far, El Reno has about 200 households committed.
Proposed program
Under OEMA's proposal, participants in the voluntary curbside recycling program would receive a 65-gallon recycling polycart. Customers must place items in sealed bags in the cart, but they won't have to sort recyclables.
Materials would be collected weekly. The OEMA program would accept plastic bottles coded 1 through 7, while Mustang Recycles can only take plastic bottles marked 1 or 2. Paper, newspaper, magazines and catalogs would also be accepted, as well as aluminum cans, steel cans and tin household containers. Clear, green and brown glass bottles and jars also would be accepted.
The proposed program would not take paper or plastic grocery bags, light bulbs, drink ware, aluminum foil, pie plates, paint or pesticide cans, plastic butter tubs, egg cartons and styrofoam trays.
Mustang Recycles
Mustang Recycles founder Brian Figgins said he doesn't think the city will have trouble finding families willing to help start the program.
Mustang Recycles organized the community's recycling center at the city's maintenance plant on SW 59th Street, just west of Wild Horse Park. The volunteers run the center from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturdays.
Figgins said traffic at the recycling center is growing. When they started in October 2006, Mustang Recycles attracted 34 customers on its opening day. Last weekend, he said 157 customers used the facility.
On April 4, Figgins said 204 people used the facility in two hours — a record for the recycling center.
“We are gaining new recyclers every week,” he said.
Figgins estimated the city is paying about $400 per month to have OEMA haul off recyclable materials brought to the center. Sixteen volunteers work at the center, helping customers sort and pack away materials.
“We are at about 150 households per weekend now,” he said. “Some of those people come every two weeks or three weeks.”
Community survey
In 2008, city officials sent out a survey on recycling to Mustang utility customers. In February, officials released the results from 1,408 responses they received.
Sixty-two percent said they were aware of the recycling drop-off site, and 32 percent reported using the facility.
When asked if they would pay between $2 and $3 per month for curbside recycling, 47 percent said they would support the program.
While the survey did not ask about willingness to pay higher rates, Figgins said he thinks it will take about two or three months to find 500 customers for the program.
“Out of the people who come by the recycling center, very few have said that $5.50 is too much to pay,” he said.
Mustang's future
A drive to any of Oklahoma's growing trash mountain landfills will show residents recycling is necessary, City Councilwoman Katherine Callahan said.
“They have to realize this is a serious matter,” she said. “Do you want your children or your children's children walking on our garbage?”
Callahan admitted her family is one of many that are beginning to take small steps to be more environmentally friendly. She said she sees a growing green consciousness in Mustang, with families reusing shopping bags and gathering up their aluminum cans, paper and plastic bottles to take to the community drop-off facility.
If curbside recycling is offered, she said she believes those families would “hop on board,” because it would save them time and money.
“If you think of the time that you go from your house to the recycling center, your time spent putting everything into plastics, putting everything into cardboard (containers) — you get back in the car and go back to the house, and you do this every weekend,” she said. “What's $5? You probably have already spent it.”
Callahan said people are learning natural resources are limited, and throwing away materials that can be reused is wasteful and lacks common sense.
If Canadian County recycling programs took off, Rutledge said it could attract more industry involved in reusing the materials to the area, which could bring more jobs. If Mustang's curbside recycling program is successful, he said, OEMA has proposed a mandatory citywide plan in which each household would pay $2.50 for the service.
“People need to understand the value,” he said. “People need to understand for every six-pack or 12-pack of plastic bottles of Coke or water they buy, instead of throwing them into the trash can and letting them get crushed and thrown into the landfill and never deteriorate, they can take and put that container, send it to be recycled to create jobs — create all kinds of products out of it that are reusable. Instead of just dumping it in the landfill, there is no value in that.”