The city of Cincinnati’s preliminary two-year budget, which was introduced Dec. 5, will suspend the city’s curbside recycling program as well as its yard waste program. The move is being done to ease an expected budget deficit the city is facing. The city, like many other cities, has been struggling with the need to balance city budgets with reduced revenue.
While the budget submitted by the city's mayor is not a final version, it is expected that most of the cuts that were made in the draft budget will remain.
The decision by the city to suspend these two programs were among a host of cuts announced by the Ohio city as it attempts to release a balanced budget for the next two years.
The decision to halt the programs will be for 2004, unless new resources are identified. The city noted that the items would be collected in the regular trash collection. For next year, the yard waste and recycling programs are funded from one-time resources.
According to Jeff Aluotto, with the Hamilton County, Ohio, Solid Waste District, Rumpke was the company that performed both the collection and processing of the recyclables. Through the program about 12,000 tons of recyclables were collected.
The city estimates that suspending these two programs would save the city around $2 million.
For next year part of the funding for the recycling and yard waste program will come from the city’s Parking Meter Fund.
While it appears likely that curbside recycling will be eliminated in 2004, the inclusion of the term "unless new resources are identified," leaves open the possibility that if the city is able to obtain a better contract from their vendor, or revenues increase to enough level the city could keep the programs.