Households in La Crosse may soon have their plastic bottles collected as part of the city’s recycling service. La Crosse Common Council member Jai Johnson introduced a motion that would make plastics recyclable mid January to the council. Johnson’s proposal originated from a report she commissioned for sustainability within the city passed earlier this year.
Currently, the city does not recycle plastics. Instead, they are thrown away with normal trash, which is then brought to Xcel Energy's Plant on French Island and burned for electricity.
It’s a change local environmentalists havewaited for after citing concerns about the hazards of burning plastics in Xcel Energy’s plant.
According to Johnson during a January council meeting, “More people than I can count want better sustainability practices in their homes. They’re looking to the city to provide them the opportunity to recycle materials.”
Based on an informal survey of online readers, The La Crosse Tribune found that nearly 90% of citizens would endorse the proposal to recycle plastics.
Back in 2007, La Crosse’s Board of Public Works decided against adding plastics to the city’s list of recyclable. Several members have concerns about how the city will pay for the recycling service.
Right now, the city is under contract with Harter's Quick Clean-Up until July 2012. In the current contract, Harter is only responsible for recycling things like aluminum cans and glass. It would cost about $50,625 a year, or roughly 25 cents per household, to include plastic recycling in biweekly collections.
Removing plastics from the waste stream will not endanger La Crosse County’s contract with Xcel, which requires that 73,000 tons of refuse are hauled to the energy plant each year according to the Feasible Recycling Study listed under the City of La Crosse homepage. The estimated 194 tons of plastics 1 and 2 that would be recycled is less than 1.5 percent of what the city contributes to that total each year.
Burning plastics in the Xcel Energy waste-to-energy plant on French Island has been a past concern because it releases chemical dioxins into the atmosphere. Solid Waste Director Hank Koch told the board that recycling plastics is preferable to burning them at the incinerator and they are not a significant part of the materials at the plant.
The city of La Crosse says it wants to look into all of its recycling options before making a decision, with discussions about possibly collaborating with neighboring communities for a cost-effective recycling plan in the works. The City Council is expected to vote on recycling plastics sometime this month.
Pitch to recycle plastics presented to city council
Published: Monday, February 1, 2010
Updated: Monday, February 1, 2010
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