JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Curbside recycling pickup will return throughout the city of Jacksonville on Monday, April 4.
Mayor Lenny Curry made the announcement late Tuesday morning on Twitter.
“I’m grateful to our citizens for their patience during these challenging and unprecedented times as we’ve faced issues happening in cities throughout the nation,” he said in the tweet.
2. The reason for the temporary suspension was to allow our contractors and City crews to respond to labor challenges and reduce the number of missed collections. We've seen notable progress and therefore, we are prepared to resume services.
— Lenny Curry (@lennycurry) February 15, 2022
He continued: “The reason for the temporary suspension was to allow our contractors and City crews to respond to labor challenges and reduce the number of missed collections. We’ve seen notable progress and therefore, we are prepared to resume services.”
Residents told News4JAX that they’re looking forward to the return of curbside recycling.
“It’s wonderful to bring it back. A lot of residents in Jacksonville have wanted that for a while, and it’s frustrating every time I have to go dump it off here, so it’s just a relief,” C.J. Dulberger said.
Clayton Adams said that while he’s glad to hear that recycling is coming back, he believes all of this could have been handled differently.
“I think the city has been completely irresponsible through this entire fiasco,” Adams said. “Cities all across the country have recycling programs. Why couldn’t Jacksonville run a simple recycling program? That is the whole purpose of government to do those kinds of things.”
In the weeks until curbside recycling resumes, the city said in a news release, it will finalize plans with contract haulers to ensure a smooth process. The news release also suggests residents could see some changes with items that could be recycled.
Curbside recycling in the city has been suspended for more than four months.
Residents have become frustrated by the pause, saying they’re paying for a service that they have not been getting and they have been stuck having to drive to drop-off sites to dump off recycling material.
Before the mayor’s announcement, News4JAX spoke with Roger Duncan at the recycling drop-off location at Blue Cypress Park — which he has been using since curbside pickup stopped. He said he wanted to see recycling go back to the way it used to be.
“Convenience,” he said.
Jacksonville City Council President Sam Newby even put together a new committee to come up with a new way to deal with solid waste.
City Councilman Matt Carlucci, who is on the Special Committee on Solid Waste and has already held a special meeting on recycling, and City Councilwoman Joyce Morgan, who is also on the new committee, held a town hall at 7 p.m. Tuesday on solid waste. It took place at the Chapel Hall at Arlington Baptist Church at 6009 Arlington Road.
“I’m excited it’s coming back,” said resident Julie Olson, one of the dozens of people who showed up for the meeting. “It’s been needed for awhile. People want it to come back.”
Morgan, who represents the Arlington area, was glad to hear recycling is coming back but said there are now other issues that need to be addressed.
“It really begs the question of what we are going to do for the future,” Morgan said. “Recycling is back. That is good enough, but what about the rest?”
The Special Committee on Solid Waste will meet Thursday to look at some of those other concerns regarding Jacksonville’s garbage, such as doing away with the garbage fee, paying for trash pickup entirely out of the city budget, or looking at what can and can’t be recycled.
Brian Hughes, the city’s chief administrative officer, said April will mark six months since the recycling suspension, which has been the city’s goal to get recycling pickup running again. As for the regional recycling sites, he plans for those bins to be removed by April 1.
“April is when yard waste picks up into summer. So, bottom line, we’re going to hold our contract hauler’s feet to the fire,” Hughes said.
Because curbside recycling hasn’t happened for six months, Hughes says the city is considering refunds of sorts.
“The property tax bill has these line items for special assessment and enterprise fees,” Hughes said. “We’re exploring the potential to essentially build into the calculation a lower number that would be a refund of missed recycling stops.”
Hughes informed the attendees that the haulers have gotten caught up with trash pickup.
“All this time, we’ve seen collections fall into the hundreds, so that’s a good sign we’re catching up on collections,” Hughes said.
He also said staff shortages were an issue for curbside recycling, too, which was addressed during the suspension.
“We’ve asked for haulers’ progress on their staffing, and within the last week or so, we got positive feedback for April,” Hughes said.
A question some have: Will citizens have to pay extra if there is a need to pay more haulers?
“The mayor believes we should have the capacity to handle that within the current budget. It’ll impact parts of the general fund,” Hughes said. “That means you’re taking things from other areas of the city government and that’s not something that the mayor is opposed to.”
Residents can visit myjax.custhelp.com or call 904-630-CITY (2489) to confirm their recycling, garbage or yard waste collection day.