Louisiana City Reintroducing Recycling Program

The city of Slidell, La., has decided to launch a revamped recycling program Feb. 10 after an eight-month hiatus. The program will be run by Waste Management Inc., the company handling the solid waste program for the city.

Chief of Staff Reinhard Dearing told City Council members earlier this week the company had informed him that it was ready to start Feb. 1, but the administration felt more time was needed to gear up and inform the public.

Mayor Ben Morris and Dearing said the city wants to send out a mailer citywide in the next couple of weeks detailing routes, pickup schedules and other information about the program.

The council, after lengthy discussion, approved most of the details of the new program in December with an ordinance providing for:

-- A new weekly service by a wood-chipper truck that will pick up long tree limbs and other yard waste and deposit it at mulch sites, still unchosen.

-- Picking up newspapers every other week instead of the previous weekly pickup. Glass, plastic and aluminum containers, formerly part of the program, no longer will be recycled.

-- A monthly charge of $2.26 per household, instead of the previous $2.52, which residents haven't had to pay since the 10-year-old program was suspended. As in the past, the fee will be tacked onto each household's monthly bill for water and sewer service and regular garbage and trash pickup.

The previous council bailed out of the 10-year program last May for political and financial reasons in a move that touched off an uproar by recycling advocates.

Waste Management officials said at the time that only 25 percent of Slidell's households were participating in the program when it was put on hold. And, they added, the market for all materials except newspapers had almost dried up.

Moreover, City Hall was under pressure from state and federal environmental authorities to upgrade the city's sewer system. So the council voted in May to increase water and sewerage rates by 25 percent but dropped recycling to lessen the financial impact on constituents.