The Plymouth City Council members reviewed an ordinance regarding garbage fees for the city.
Plymouth City Attorney Sean Surrisi said Monday night the city negotiated a contract renewal with Republic Services who has been the city’s waste hauler for over 10 years. Another five-year contract was negotiated last year with an adjustment to the recycling collection schedule, but a small increase is set to occur this month.
Surrisi explained that the garbage collection fee will increase but a savings in recycling fees will result in a lower increase on utility bills.
“After entering into that contract last year, we did a little bit of a public education campaign with the folks from Republic Services and did some advertising about what types of materials should go in your bin and how clean they need to be for them to actually be acceptable when it gets to the sorting station for processing. I guess that public education did work and as a result of that we saw a four cent per month decrease in the recyclable charge,” stated Surrisi.
Residents will only see a 49 cent increase per month on the garbage fee.
Aside from a dollar increase imposed by the city a few years ago, Surrisi said that this is the first increase the city has seen from the company in over 10 years.
The Plymouth City Council members suspended the rules and adopted the ordinance on all three readings.
