Tampa Looks to Expand Recycling Program

After serving only select neighborhoods for more than a decade, Tampa will take its recycling program citywide beginning this fall.

Recycling Manager Barbara Heineken said the city will expand the curbside pickup in three phases.

About 20,000 to 25,000 households will be added to the recycling program in the first phase, but Heineken said the routes haven't been chosen.

Another several thousand customers will be added in October. The final phase starts in December, she said.

Tampa homeowners pay $19 a month for garbage collection, regardless of whether they have curbside recycling service. Only 26,000 of the city's 80,000 households have curbside service.

Heineken said the city will spend about $1.2 million on 10 new trucks and 80,000 blue recycling bins. The Solid Waste Department will hire about a dozen new employees. Presently the city delivers the collected material to a Waste Management facility.

Heineken estimates that once the curbside collection program is available throughout the city there will be between 700-750 tons of recyclables collected a month.