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ECUA May End Free Curbside Recycling, Adding A Fee For Those That Recycle
July 18, 2023
The Emerald Coast Utilities Authority may soon end free curbside recycling, instead charging an extra fee for those that wish to recycle.
“We are considering the possibility of different scenarios to encourage proper use of the recycling can,” ECUA Public Information Office Nathalie Bowers said.
The problem, she said, is contamination in the recycling stream — residents putting items that can’t be recycled in the ECUA program into the recycling can.
“The board will consider adding a fee for recycling,” she said. “They may also reduce the price of a second (regular sanitation) can, or potentially reduce the monthly bill for those without recycling and just one can . Or the board may come back with other possibilities.” The ECUA board will consider the options at their next meeting on July 25 with a final vote coming in August.
ECUA customers have had optional curbside recycling at no charge since 2009. The current recycling facility has been open since 2016.
RELATED: Here’s What To Recycle (And Not).
Comments
54 Responses to “ECUA May End Free Curbside Recycling, Adding A Fee For Those That Recycle”
When I moved here in 2006, we had twice a week garbage pickup. A few years later, ECUA changed that and offered recycling and an extra can so that one could divide their waste between garbage and recycling. I was Ok with that since I have two cans of waste a week. I pay more to ECUA a month than I do to FPL. I have never lived in a city where I paid more for water and sewerage than electricity. I suspect there may be a lot of mismanagement at ECUA and that is why our services keep being reduced as our rates keep going up, ECUA needs to get its act together. I have complained frequently about our subdivision getting skipped about one week a month for a few months now, and then I have to call up for a separate pickup because our street got bypassed. And, when travelling down I-10 toward Alabama, one would think we have a mountain range here in Escambia county. Look at the landfill at the state line. It literally looks like a mountain range it is so high. Then, one hears that ECUA is just dumping the recycling items in the landfill site. What are we paying a recycling fee for? Why are we carefully dividing up our items only to have them all dumped in the same place as our garbage? ECUA needs to do better. I pay ECUA an average of $300 a month, and I check for leaks constantly. I have a two person household.
How about charge the customers WHO don’t recycle? Why “punish” the ones who want to recycle and ACTUALLY do it correctly!!! I love the recycle service but I am not paying extra! We already pay enough for ECUA and still have to call more often than anyone should for missed pick up! Oh and don’t even get me started on the joke of customer service basically blaming the customer for the missed pick up and their line of crap about they’ll TRY to get someone out there! I make ONE call to CS. Then if it isn’t picked up I call the supervisor I’ve talked to more than once! That’s not how that should work.
Well…I would like to personally thank all of the hard-working sanitation workers who do the dirty jobs among us, to help keep us clean and free of diseases. They do an exceptional job for the lowest wages that the county pays. Speaking of recycling, I think that it may be the right time to start recycling the politicians who seem to be creating a lot of waste that we are having to clean up after! Does anyone agree?
Why don’t you get the 510,000 from your former recycling manager who stole it and leave things as they are
I’m on the band wagon of people that’s going to get rid of my recycle bin to avoid an extra fee. But I will say it’s understandable to start charging for it. Because you’ve got all these idiots here that just see it as a second trash can. “Oh I ran out of room in the green can, let’s just throw our trash in the gray one.” Then ECUA has to spend more time and money to sort that out at the facility because you can’t recycle Jimbob’s bag of leftover spaghetti and the dog hair he swept off the floor. In a perfect world they could charge only the ones that don’t use it correctly, but there’s no way track that individually. So I’m not going to cuss ECUA for this one. Blame the lazy and inconsiderate residents that don’t care what they throw in their recycle bin.
Charge a fee to those who are not recycling , is the answer. We must save our environment look at the rising temps. People are lazy and lack motivation to do anything that looks hard. Recycling is easy.
Their basic service is terrible. You call to report you garbage or recycle can was not picked up as scheduled. The no customer service gives you a song and dance that they work until 7:00 PM but when they still don’t pick it up on the scheduled day who are you going to call after 7:00. To add insult to injury than ask you a dumb question such as was your can by the by 5:00 AM for pick up. I’ve never seen a garbage truck on the street where I live at 5:00 AM never! ECUA’s service sucks and they are always looking for ways to increase cost to the customer. Believe me they more tricks up their sleeve than we the customer could imagine. BTW pick up my recycle can.
I stand corrected Mr.Metoo..you’re correct sanitation drivers reciecve a safety bonus for being accident free for a specific time period and although I hold a Class A CDL my job doesn’t require it so therefore I’m ineligible, again I apologize for the misunderstanding on my part.
If you dont want to recycle or cant figure out how, call ECUA to come get your recycle can. Its free to you anyway and your probably part of the problem. Do this today, no need to wait.
ECUA is probably loosing quite a bit of money on recycling, specially if its contaminated by idiots. Recycling is a business, bean counters don’t care about the earth.
We now have a 1.00 transfer station (XFR) charge on our bill until 2043?
I can live with one 90 gal can a week. I will take cardboard to the navy base. No way will I pay ECUA to recycle so they can make a profit all the while adding more fees to my bill.
Don’t forget, every new house built is a new ECUA customer, for about 100 bucks or more a month
Everything in the green bin then.
I apologize for you not getting any bonuses. I was told by sanitation truck driver that they get bonuses for safe driving. Part of the job is to drive safely. Are you one of the truck drivers ?
ECUA new cost cutting measure proposal…ONCE A MONTH TRASH SERVICE IS COMING NEXT…..
BOONDOGGLE. we have spend over $15,000,000 n this facilityTO LET A FOR PROFIT COMPANY RUN IT….Now they cant do it on all the money we fed them and now they need more. When is the public meeting about this?
Are they crazy? Charge us to do their work? I’ll be proud to throw it all in one can and not have to think about where the trash has to go anymore. I’m old enough to remember burning everything but the tin cans. A subdivision is on top of where we threw those. Peace.
Hey Mr. Metoo I’ve worked at ECUA for almost 25 years and I’ve NEVER received a bonus..please enlighten me as to how I can get one of these..
I am all for ending it. Give us back twice a week collection of garbage and twice a week picking up yard debris! Paint the recycle cans green and use them up to replace failing garbage cans!
I agree with so many of these comments. We have tried to recycle but on many of the plastics, I CAN’T EVEN SEE the tiny #1 or #2 on the containers. No other numbers accepted. When in doubt, throw it out. Our recyclable list changes so frequently that it’s almost useless to even try. No to this, no to that – oh, we can now take these but not those. I’ll also be surrendering our can if an additional fee is put in place, Oh and here’s a thought…maybe they can get the leaking trucks fixed so they will quit dumpling oil all through the neighborhoods at each trash/recycle can stop. It is disgusting to think that while trying for “cleaner”, we’re instead having to step in ECUA truck oil just to bring the cans from the curb.
ECUA May End Free Curbside Recycling.
ECUA….don’t tell us that recycling is a free collection. In the process of establishing collection, some trucks had to be purchased in order to keep up with the “COUNTY” demand since 2009 and a new collection facility in 2016. I have NEVER known the County to start a process and NOT charge it’s customers for the upgrade. Come get my recycle can, sell some of those trucks and put the money back into County funds that will reduce our Property Taxes.
Time to replace ECUA!! Every day the service gets worse. The water lines on Kingsfield routinely fail, dumping mud in my plumbing. Not to mention that it takes 10 employees to do a poor repair that will most assuredly fail again. I want Allied back. Good service, not constantly missed pick ups, no hassles over bulk pick up, not fraught with corruption or complaints. Hunh Ms. Campbell! The citizen’s voice…LOL. More like Public Enemy #1. And Dist. 5’s Mis-Rep. Another outright joke! Time to vote them out and petition the Legislature to dissolve the ECUA. Many places give a credit for recycling, not good old ECUA…they want to kill it or charge more….
Jason, i’m with you. I might just put the recycle bin inside the regular trash bin.
Heres the BIGGEST solution.
Each board member MUST ride 2-4 hours on each truck…
Garbage-recycle-bulk
Not sure how board members can make decisions without on hand lessons of pickups!!!!
@ Elizabeth Berry
Sorry but your neighbor was wrong. My house recycles and most of the people I know recycle and are very conscience about separating and placing recyclables in the correct can. Just because your neighbor is too lazy to separate trash doesn’t mean everyone in the county is. You say you have been recycling since the 80’s, that is not very long. I lived in St. Louis MO. during the 1960s and we recycled then. We had a day for food waste, a day for paper and then a day for everything else. When we moved back here in the seventies we continued to recycle. The table scraps went to the chickens and the dogs, paper was burned in the fire barrel to buried later, and cans and metal were separated and given to a neighborhood Junk man, who then sold it to the scrap yard. Yep, there was a time when recycling was beneficial, and profitable, now we pay to recycle.
Come a get my can now !!!!!
Why do people insist on saying county. The Emerald Coast Utility Authority is not owned by any form of Escambia County government. Next is a charge for not rinsing your garbage off so tje trucks don’t stink. ECUA can save money by charging more for the green and people will dump trash on the side of the road. Then the county will have to pick it up. Saves ECUA landfill fees and fuel. Or better yet cut those employees bonuses. I better stop before my can doesn’t get emptied again this week.
Before recycling, we had one can, but our trash was picked up twice a week. They started recycling and cut trash pick up to once a week. If they stop recycling do our services go back to twice a week?
This wouldn’t be an issue if crummy people didn’t throw their regular garbage in the recycle can.
Direct your anger to the lazy folks in our community. That is the problem. But Pensacola isn’t known for its intelligence.
A number of years ago I offered my services to the poor leadership at ECUA to reengineer their business process. They turned me down! It’s only gotten worse since then. I hope they’re not dumb enough to charge people to recycle. If they do, they will only end up with lots of garbage in their recycle containers.
I knew someone that worked at a recycling facility in GA. They would sort through the items and remove the ones that didn’t meet the requirements. Is that not being done here?
If there’s a fee to recycle then they can take my bin as well. I’m tired of all the monopolies for services that we are forced to use.
I moved here 3 years ago. The county assessed a fee less than $19 a person for everyone one. It was expected that everyone would recycle ♻️ and do their part. We moved here, I asked my neighbors if they recycle and the answer was nobody recycles. REALLY??????. Then you shut down for 2 months due to staffing. Where I worked, if you were short staff, the manager better pitch in .
I propose the county pitch in with the recycling program.
Everyone be assessed a small fee
Start a large marketing campaign because obviously people in Pensacola and Escambia don’t care about protecting the environment they live in.
We’ve been recycling ♻️ since the 80s and proud to be doing our part. Keep your city clean and protect your environment.
@Need to Recycle
ECUA has 2 Senior discounts:
Senior Citizen Rate – $23.18 – must use a 40 or 60 gallon container
Senior Citizen Lifeline Rate – $13.17 – must use a 40 gallon container
Call 850 476 0480
Come and get your recycle can. I will continue to recycle, but I will put them in large plastic bags, load them on my trailer and drive to the recycle ling station. Put the money in my pockets, and not yours.
Here’s an idea – I understand that the contamination issues are being caused both by people using their recycle can for regular trash and by those being careless. What about every household still gets two cans, at the same rate, but can choose whether to have a recycling can or a second regular trash can?
Honestly, I have a small household and would be happy with a smaller can for regular trash and keep the recycling going…
So…I fill my small recyclable can every 2 – 3 weeks. I make sure no rules are broken, no contaminated items are included and all the plastics meet the exact parameters. My neighbor down the street leaves a forbidden article in his can, and the whole system goes “tilt.” The only thing constant is I pay my bill every month. Too many moving parts.in this process.
If ECUA is having to remove the regular garbage from the gigantic weekly recycling pile, I think that pretty much sums up who’s fault this whole mess is. And it ain’t ECUA. If there weren’t so many morons who can’t follow simple directions, this system would work just fine.
No problem I’ll just throw away what i used to recycle. I certainly wont pay you to take the aluminum, glass and paper products I used to sort out.
COME GET MY CAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NEXT THING YOU WILL WANT TO DO, IS CHARGE PEOPLE TO BREATHE!!!!!!!!
This comes down to one thing and one thing only- ECUA just figuring out a new way to RAISE THE RATES. They already charge us to pay our bill online. ECUA SORT THIS OUT!
What most people do not understand is recycling is not financially sustainable in most cases.
Most people find it virtuous to recycle and it makes them feel good, but from a financial perspective recycling is a financial dog.
Just like solar/wind energy, recycling is not sustainable without extra fees, taxes or government funding. Recycling cannot fund itself!!!
Finally, China has 1/3 of the world’s population and currently opens two new coal plants a day or week. The conservation activities in America will have no measurable effect on the planet until China and India decide to “go green”.
ECUA
Take this can and shove it
I ain’t workin’ here no more
They can come to get my can too, it’s good enough I only put paper, aluminum, and plastic only in my recycle. But they can sort it, that’s why I pay $30 a month for garbage pickup, not to do their job sorting on top of the $30. Hasn’t this recycling been down a while? They can’t even keep people employed to sort recycling that’s the issue here, they want us to offset their poor hiring practices and lazy employees.
The #1 thing ECUA does excel at is lip service. I can’t count on 2 hands the times I’ve seen both cans disposed into the same truck or just not picked up. The blah blah blah of staffing shortages, equipment shut downs and now this. This stinks of commissioner influencing. There are signs constantly of conflict of interest. Of the recycles that do make it only a small percentage are actually processed.
Its like there’s a spin wheel down at the county seat that is spun weekly as to give them another way to fleece the residents.
Trim some of the excess fat, quit your green washing reterick and live within your means like the rest of society.
I say why take the asprin if you can avoid the headache. Please come get your can. You have made it so inconvenient that even the most devout recycler is over it.
I can understand the overall hate people are sending ECUA here. There are two problems they are trying to deal with.
1. People aren’t following the rules for sorting trash which makes the sorting process more expensive. So the county has to pay more people to do this job. Not a highly coveted job or a well paying one.
2. The overall recycling industry has changed significantly since the county started recycling. There was a time when recycling could break even assuming people knew how to follow instructions and sort trash. Aside from aluminum cans recycling isn’t profitable or as easy to break even anymore. This change in fee structure likely reflects that attempt to break even on the process.
ECUA is in bad need of qualified management, they are very inefficient in everything they do including running their routes. I really don’t think they are capable of running an efficient recycling program
Come and get it. Recycling is half a sham anyway
Let me get this straight:
1) Garbage pickup is made mandatory but to make it easier to swallow, they offer twice a week pickup.
2) Pickup is cut back to once a week but to make up for it, we get a recycle can.
3) Now, pickup is still mandatory, and we are going back to 1 can but with once a week service?
ECUA – We have NO options – we are FORCED to use you. Either allow us free use of a 2nd can or return to twice a week service.
ECUA makes money off recycling and selling it. Also, if they kept the recycling open constantly enough for people to be used to it they might have a better outcome. When you see the same truck come and pick up both your regular van and your recycling can, people get tired of bothering with it
I agree with everyone else. Might as well come and get my cans. I’d rather throw all into 1 container anyway. Heck, I remember we used to have to drive our own garbage to the dump. Can we consider this an option? Don’t even charge me collection fees and I’ll bring my own garbage to you.
Fee to recycle? ECUA can take its can and shove it.
They better get to hiring more people to work at the recycling center then. I’m not paying to help them do their job, and clearly other people agree.
Nope.
I thought we were already paying for it with our trash service. We pay enough for only once a week service.
COME GET MY CAN!
OOPS! BOTH
I understand the cost to maintain a recycling facility is one thing but to charge customers for specifically doing what is environmentally proper is another. Perhaps add a few cents to EVERYBODY’s garbage service and just keep getting the recyclables. It might incentivize others to actually start recycling. I know some don’t choose to recycle but use 2 trash cans to get rid of their garbage and everything else they don’t burn. Maybe they’d recycle if they were already paying a little for the service but DONT add a fee specifically to those of us who are doing what is right.
If ECUA opts to add a fee to those who recycle, ECUA may as well come get my recycle can. I wont pay extra for recycling services.
Seriously? Charging for customers that care enough to recycle is incredibly short-sighted. How about you charge for customers that do NOT recycle? The world we are leaving behind for the next generation(s) will appreciate today’s customers doing the right thing.