St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman announced Monday in a video that, beginning in January, recycling will be picked up in alleys at homes where garbage is collected there.
The move comes after a rocky rollout in which residents in neighborhoods where trash is collected in alleys argued it didn’t make sense to have recycling picked up at the curb.
Those neighborhoods make up about 40 percent of the city’s homes and often have fenced-in front yards not conducive to rolling bins to the curb. Streets in those neighborhoods also tend to have cars parked along the side, making pickup difficult.
The Kriseman administration has been working since the rollout earlier this summer to accommodate those homes. Initially they said the alleys were too small to accommodate the large trucks purchased to pick up recycling.
“The next few months will allow for us to do increased maintainance in our alleys including the removal of over-growth,” Kriseman explained in a video posted to the city’s YouTube channel Monday. “We will do the work necessary to accommodate for the twice monthly placement of the 95-gallon containers.”
This will come as good news to the Historic Old Northeast, Kenwood and downtown neighborhood associations that all voiced public discontent over strict curbside recycling.
The mayor said despite the concerns voiced by residents in traditional neighborhoods where recycling is collected from alley ways, the city has experienced high rates of participation.
“This program is less than 100 days old and it’s already clear that St. Pete likes to recycle,” Kriseman said. “Early indications are we’re doing a fantastic job of keeping non-recyclable materials out of our blue containers, but there’s still room for improvement.”
The city had previously worried that putting the blue recycling bins in alleys would lead to increased contamination of recyclables by people placing common trash in the bins. Kriseman hopes the change to procedures will lead to even greater participation as recycling becomes easier for residents in traditional neighborhoods.
The city plans to purchase four additional trucks for recycling that will be smaller than the others and rear-loading.
Kriseman is asking residents to share his video to spread the word and that residents let their neighbors know.
An app is available to receive reminders about when recycling is picked up and tips on how to recycle properly.
