01/13/09
Recycling Center hours reduced to four days a week
Council also sets public hearing on recommendations to enhance recycling education, establish recycling requirements by ordinance
Effective Feb. 1, 2009, the Cape Elizabeth Recycling Center will be open four days a week, for a total of 36 hours a week.
The Cape Elizabeth Town Council on Jan. 12, 2009 voted unanimously to approve a recommendation from the council's recycling working group to reduce the hours of recycling center operation by two hours on Wednesdays, and to close the facility on Thursdays.
"The whole impetus behind this is purely economic," said Jim Rowe, council chairman. "We are trying to save money by compressing the hours, and thereby creating savings by not having the recycling center manned and operated," he said.
Town official project a $14,000 saving by reducing the number of recycling center staffed hours by 10 per week.
Beginning Feb. 1, recycling center hours will be:
- Mondays: 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
- Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays: 8 a.m.-5 p.m.
- Tuesdays, Thursdays, Sundays: Closed
The council voted to change the hours following a public hearing, at which no one spoke.
The recommendation to reduce the number of recycling center hours came from a report issued by the working group, accepted by the council at their December, 2008 meeting.
Hearing set on recycling group recommendations
In a related matter, the council will hold a public hearing on further recommendations of the working group on Monday, Feb. 9, 7:30 p.m. in the Town Hall chamber.
Recommendations include:
- An enhanced program of recycling education that will generate long term savings of $18,000 per year at present values; and,
- Amendments to the solid waste ordinance that will require recycling.
Currently the town has no legislation requiring recycling, said Councilor Anne Swift-Kayatta, who headed the working group.
"(Waste disposal) is a huge number in our budget," she said. "If we all recycled more we could save the town a lot of money," she said.
Missing from the working group's recommendations are pay-per-bag requirements, and curbside rubbish pickup. Both were considered by the working group, but are not being recommended because the benefits were outweighed by the potential costs, Swift-Kayatta said. "That's not to say we would never look at those things," she said.
|
