The city of Columbia will resume curbside recycling collection every other week beginning Feb. 1, it was announced Tuesday.
Also on Feb. 1, the city will initiate its Pay As You Throw trash collection program, which charges residents for extra refuse bags after they exceed their annual allotment.
Residents in single-family homes will continue to be charged $17.37 per month for trash collection and will receive vouchers for a year's set of bags. But if they use more than the 104 refuse bags and 54 recycling bags provided by the city, they will be charged $10 for a roll of five bags or $2 per bag.
All bags placed curbside for residential trash collection must be in the city-issued bags with a logo, or they will not be collected, according to a news release from Steve Hunt, manager of the city's Solid Waste Utility.
A contactless drive-through process has been set up this week to let residents exchange their vouchers for bags without going into a store or City Hall.
Vouchers can be redeemed from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday at the Parks Management Center in Cosmo Park. The city will also distribute bags in the same location from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday Jan. 23.
In addition to City Hall, bags are available at Gerbes, Hy-Vee, Moser's and Schnucks supermarkets and at the Menards home improvement store.
Curbside recycling collection was suspended indefinitely in July because of ongoing staffing shortages and a declining market for recycled materials, the Missourian reported earlier.
Shortages have been persistent for several years as the city struggled to retain qualified permanent and temporary workers. That situation worsened during the pandemic as trash collectors began to test positive for COVID-19.
According to the Solid Waste Utility in its Thursday announcement, the department is now "sufficiently staffed to offer a curbside recycling program on a reduced basis."
On alternate weeks, residents can put their blue recycling bags, paper and cardboard bundles curbside on a scheduled refuse pickup day. Customers will receive a mailer explaining which weeks they are scheduled for recycling collection, according to a city news release.
Those scheduled for recycling pickup during the week of Feb. 1, for example, would need to wait until the week of Feb. 15 to put recyclables on the curb again. Future scheduled weeks for curbside recycling would be March 1, March 15 and so on.
Customers whose pickup is scheduled for the week of Feb. 8 will then be able to put out their recycling during the weeks of Feb. 22, March 8, March 22, and so on.
An interactive feature will also be added to the city of Columbia website to help residents determine their recycling schedule. Weekly reminders will also be available on the CoMo Recycle and Trash app.
Trash collection has been the subject of intense debate since at least 2011 when city staff first broached the idea of roll carts as trash containers instead of bags. In March 2016, an initiative on the ballot to ban roll carts passed by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent.
Last year, the roll cart issue again came before City Council, which ultimately put to rest the notion of reviving the debate. A petition drive to put roll carts on the ballot again has failed so far to gain the required number of signatures.