Manitowoc officials looked at adding lids to trash and recycling bins to help stop litter.
In a memo to the Public Infrastructure Committee, Director Dan Koski, Engineering Division Manager Greg Minikel, and City Attorney Eric Nycz say they were approached by an alderman about creating additional guidelines for garbage and recycling collection because large amounts of trash are littering the streets and parks, especially after windy days.
The trash comes from uncovered trash and recycling bins that are blown over in the street.
The department heads met with Mike Pozorski of Pozorski Hauling and Recycling, two members from Waste Management, as well as Jon Reisenbuechler and Craig Breit from the Manitowoc County Recycling Center, to understand how requiring lids on trash cans would affect them.
If the city requires a hinged lid, like on a garbage can with wheels, Pozorski Hauling and Recycling would have to make a capital investment to automate trucks.
During Wednesday’s (October 1st) Public Infrastructure meeting, Joe Pozorski, who represents Pozorski Hauling, said they if Manitowoc just required a normal lid, they could provide them to customers plus an extra red bin.
“Costs for a second red bin, the costs of those lids are relatively nominal,” he stated. “And it probably wouldn’t, we wouldn’t anticipate anybody’s costs for the service itself, so that could be accomplished.”
However, if the city chose to due hinged lids, Pozorski said the county would need to take everything recyclable as one or make it single stream.
“If they’re not interested in doing single source, then we can’t do hinged containers,” he told the committee. “We can still do the lidded containers with the red bins, and if people want two of them, so be it. The cost of that is nominal. But the hinge containers is a different situation.”
Reisenbuechler told the committee that the county recycling center is not set up for single-stream recycling, and it would take three to five years, plus a lot of upgrades to the recycling center.
In the end, the committee voted to table the item and not act at this time.
