Members of the Longmont City Council on Tuesday night voted their unanimous informal support to set aside $45,000, the estimate to cover projected costs of a special event for residents to deposit their hard-to-recycle materials.
That event, still in the planning stages, could last several days, Bob Allen, the Public Works and Natural Resources Department’s operations director, told the council. Cost could range from $25,000 to $45,000.
City staff said prior to Tuesday night’s meeting the special event would enable residents to dispose of hard-to-recycle materials that Longmont’s residential trash collection customers cannot put into their city-supplied recyclable materials containers, as well as some of the materials not now accepted at the city’s Waste Diversion Center at 140 Martin St.
City staff said items being planned for the city to accept at the event could include electronics, TVs, fire extinguishers, textiles, clothing, ceramics and porcelain, printer cartridges, hard-cover books and documents for shredding. Other hard-to-recycle materials the city may also decide to accept could include flat glass and windows in frames.
Waste Services Manager Charles Kamenides said last week said the event will be in Longmont “with a focus on convenient location for our residents.”
Council consideration of funding the hard-to-recycle special event proposal — an action that’s to come back for a formal vote — was part of an overall study session presentation to update progress on planning possible changes to Longmont’s other waste collection and diversion programs, including alternatives for moving to a “universal recycling” system.
Allen said “generically, universal recycling refers to laws and ordinances that require business owners, private haulers and/or municipal haulers to provide recycling service or recycling opportunities to everyone.“
.Councilmembers Polly Christensen and Joan Peck expressed support for shifting Longmont’s residents from an “opt-in” curbside composting containers system, in which participants pay a monthly fee — and moving to an “opt-out” system in which people would have to refuse it.
However, other councilmembers did not comment on that idea, and neither Peck nor Christensen moved that it be scheduled for formal discussion and possible vote.
Earlier in Tuesday‘s study session, during a public comment segment of the meeting, the council heard an environmental activist organization’s representative urge the city do more and do it more rapidly, to divert the community’s solid waste from the landfill.
Shari Malloy, a member of Sustainable Resilient Longmont’s Zero Waste Committee, said, “with commercial trash factored in, we’re sending 76% of the trash we generate in Longmont to the landfill. Eighty percent of this can and should be recycled or composted.”
Malloy said Zero Waste Committee team members have identified three priorities. One would be to provide universal residential composting. A second wouldrequire multifamily housing complexes and businesses to recycle by adopting a universal recycling ordinance. The third would be “to significantly improve outreach and education.”
To fund needed improvements in Longmont’s solid waste collection, recycling, composting, outreach and education programs, “we need to increase our waste management fee,” Malloy said. “Our fee is ridiculously low at $2.96/month per household. In Loveland, where their diversion rate is double ours, residents pay $11.50 a month.”
Staff has said it will work on possible updates to the language in a Zero Waste resolution the City Council adopted in 2008.
Malloy called the current resolution “rather weak.” She said, “We’ve had 13 years of the carrot with disappointing results, and it’s high time for stronger political will and policies.”