Recycling on the table for 2020 garbage contract

Look out your window for flying pigs, because the coulee area may get recycling in 2020.

The towns of Electric City, Grand Coulee, Coulee Dam, and Elmer City will be deciding on a recycling option to choose in a new contract with Sunrise Disposal, which performs garbage service in the area.

One option is to place a 25-yard container with separate sections for various materials at the Delano Transfer Station to be taken to the Okanogan County Recycling Center on an as-needed basis. This option is said to have no additional cost in the explanation of the options presented by Sunrise Disposal.

Another option would place recycling containers in each of the four cities, which would tag on an additional cost of $1.05 to the customers’ rates.

And a third option is “full stream recycling,” or picking up recycling at each residence, which would cost an extra $9.90 per household.

One concern with placing a large container in each city, according to the explanation of the options, is that without it being monitored, people could put their trash inside of it, and so efforts would need to be made to monitor the containers.

That concern would be less of an issue in the option of a container being placed at the Delano Transfer Station, where it would be monitored.

The Delano Transfer Station already recycles corrugated cardboard, and Coulee Recycling accepts aluminum cans and some other materials.

The addition of a Sunrise Disposal recycling service would offer the recycling of newspaper, magazines, phone books, aluminum cans, tin cans, and plastic bottles and jars.

The four towns must agree on an option, and will presumably be discussing the issue at upcoming council meetings.

The Electric City council met last night with the recycling topic on the agenda, voting 3-1 for a bin at the Delano site, but placed outside the fence. The council meets on the second Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m.

The next Elmer City council meeting is this Thursday at 7 p.m.; the council meets on the second Thursday of every month at 7 p.m.

Grand Coulee’s council meets next Feb. 19 at 6 p.m. and meets on the third Tuesday of every month at that time.

Coulee Dam’s next council meeting is tonight (Wednesday). It meets the second and fourth Wednesdays each month at 6 p.m.