City officials believe they have a plan in place — albeit a $7 million one — to simplify a complex recycling issue.

Property owners are in line to receive trash and recycling carts to accommodate an entire new fleet of automated collection trucks next summer, according to Mayor John Antaramian.

The trash and recycling overhaul, along with its estimated $7 million to $7.5 million price tag, is included in next year’s budget and is waiting approval.

The program could be implemented in July 2020.

“This is a major change and something, from the city’s perspective, that needed to happen,” Antaramian said. “All of this will come out in the next 30 days when we come forward with the proposals.”

Blue bag system

has to be eliminated

Local residents have always supplied their own trash containers and began using a blue-bag system for recycling in 1992, when the city introduced a pilot program in the Forest Park neighborhood.

Kenosha is one of the state’s last municipalities to use blue bags, which are deemed contaminants and no longer accepted by recycling companies because they bog down the sorting process and damage equipment.

The Department of Public Works was recently notified it would be fined by its waste collection company if it continued using the blue bags for recycling. Antaramian confirmed it and said the city’s cost for recycling has been hit with a penalty.

“The reality is we can’t move any faster than we’re moving,” Antaramian said. “It doesn’t make sense to try and change a system and change it again in a short period of time. This all happened very quickly in the sense of the penalties that came on. They just started.

“We’ve been dealing with the planning of this for awhile knowing we had to go to the (automated) system. Regrettably, some of this happened faster than we anticipated,” he said.

Topic has heated up

Recycling, which is mandatory and state-regulated, became a hot topic when a local environment group spoke at the Sept. 16 Common Council meeting. The group challenged the city to change its dated recycling efforts and questioned whether any of the local material collected was being recycled or tossed directly into landfills.

“We’re here to address the open secret that what we are now placing in blue bags is not being recycled,” said Ellen Ferwerda, a member of the Kenosha Green Congregations Group. “Recycling companies do not want to deal with blue bags or any bags because they get caught in the machinery and gum up the system. This means the sorting machine at the facility has to be shut down to do repairs. This is a costly event in terms of time and money. For this reason, recycling companies have required municipalities to stop using blue plastic bags.”

Ferwerda said when a recycling company spots a truckload filled with blue bags, that truck is re-routed straight to the landfill.

City officials investigated that claim this week and found it to be inaccurate, according to Keir Powell, city superintendent of waste and recycling. However, what they discovered was equally alarming.

Recycling market

mostly dried up

Many of the items local residents are required by the state to recycle are not being recycled due to a variety of reasons. The biggest reason is the global market for recyclable goods — fueled by the Far East, China, Singapore and Indonesia — has run bone dry.

Recycled material is dropped off at Advanced Disposal, 5421 46th St., and transported to a Municipal Recovery Facility, commonly referred to as “murfs,” in Germantown. Powell toured the Germantown facility on Thursday.

“The only thing there’s even really a market for with curbside collection is aluminum, but even that is really, really low,” Powell said. “The contractors are not seeing any type of bounce back in the future either. It’s pretty much depressed and they don’t see anything happening, even in the longtime future.

“We’ve been told one of the most valuable things are the fibers, which is the cardboard and paper, and that’s at zero (marketability) right now. There is no money to be made from it.”

Don’t stop recycling

Yet, if the city does not meet a minimum collection requirement (80:20 trash to recyclable ratio), it could potentially be removed from state funding. Antaramian said the city has been “on the border for a long time with that issue.”

If local residents immediately stop recycling, that could be very bad, according to Ald. Mitchell Pedersen.

“Unfortunately, most of the material we’re collecting for our recyclables is going into the landfill,” said Pedersen, chairman of the Public Works Committee. “But if we stop collecting recyclables, we lose out on a significant amount of money.”

Local environmental groups are livid with the current state of recycling, which Ferwerda blatantly described as “really (screwed) up.”

“It doesn’t even really matter how we do it right now,” Ferwerda said. “All local, state and national government is interested in is finding money-making solutions for problems and this is one that isn’t making people any money.”

Alternative funding sources

Powell said there are other ways to continue state funding even if the city’s collection ratio falls below the minimum state requirements. One of those methods is through community outreach programs, which educate local residents on the past, present and future of recycling.

Recycling must continue to evolve and include a global push to reduce waste, according to Powell.

“I wish the definition would change,” Powell said. “I wish people wouldn’t just see recycling as blue bags, newspapers and cardboard on the curb. We can recycle mattresses. We can recycle scrap metal. There are all kinds of alternative things that, right now, there’s a possible market for. We just have to tap into it. Recycling is still alive. It has to be revamped.”

Eliminating single-use plastic items immediately would be a huge step in the right direction, according to Powell.

“They’re an absolute abomination,” Powell said. “There are certain restaurants in Kenosha that ask you if you want a straw instead of just putting it in your drink. Grocery stores are still using plastic bags. The amount of energy it takes to create this plastic bag from a petroleum-based product that we just fill at the grocery store, empty at home and throw away is ridiculous. We shouldn’t be doing that.”

Targeting new carts

There are 32,000 households in position to receive new, 96-gallon trash and recycling carts. A community outreach, planned this winter, will inform residents of the proper way to recycle, what needs to be collected and how to reduce contaminants and waste.

In being one of the last communities in the state moving to an automated trash and recycling program — Sheboygan is believed to be the other — Powell said there will be some advantages.

“I believe our stream of recycling, once we start this, will be much cleaner than most other municipalities because we have the ability to get all of this information out before we even start,” Powell said. “We’ll be able to let residents know what their role is and what will be expected of them.”