WATERVILLE — The city will not offer curbside recycling pickup every other week for at least two more years after the company offering the service said its schedule is too busy.

The news may come as a disappointment to residents who asked the city for more frequent recycling collection in the lead-up to last month’s referendum on the city’s controversial pay-as-you-throw program, which was re-approved.

Jerry Allen, an employee of Sullivan’s Waste company, empties recyclable materials into a company truck in Waterville in July 2014. The Thorndike company has a three-year contract to pick up Waterville residents’ recycling. Staff file photo by David Leaming

Public Works Director Mark Turner broke the news in a recent memo to Mayor Nick Isgro and City Manager Michael Roy. That means the current collection schedule will remain in place until Sullivan’s three-year contract runs out in 2017.

Sullivan’s Waste and Disposal, the Thorndike company that collects the city’s recycling, informed Turner that it wouldn’t be able to move to every other week collection because it would conflict with contracts it had with 17 other communities it serves, Turner said. According to its website, the towns Sullivan’s contracts with include Albion, Thorndike, Unity and Palmyra among others.

Waterville officials discussed the possibility of bi-weekly pickup with Sullivan over the course of several weeks before they finally told the city that it couldn’t happen. Sullivan, which has a three-year contract with the city, would have had to nearly double its $72,000 contract to hire additional personnel and buy equipment, Turner said.

“Even with that, they were not confident that they could take on the additional work,” Turner wrote in his memo.

Now, recyclables are picked up twice a month, on the first and third full week of the month. That leaves a handful of times this year when collection will be delayed by an extra week because of longer months with five weeks.

The week of June 29 to July 3 was one such outlier, and Autumn Street resident Heather Merrow said that when she was finally about to put recycling out this past week she had four bins and a trash can full.

Merrow, a co-director of the South End Neighborhood Association, was upset to learn that the city would not be offering bi-weekly pick-up all year. On those off-weeks, material can pile up, becoming a hassle for those in the city who don’t have a lot of space.

“I think of people with a small apartment and no entryway,” Merrow said. “Why would you want all that recycling sitting in your kitchen?”

Merrow and others brought up the issue of more frequent recycling collection in public forums leading up to the vote on Waterville’s pay-as-you-throw program, which charges residents for each bag of trash they use.

Roy said he considered having city workers pick up recycling on the off-week, but decided “there would have been a lot of confusion” had the city altered the schedule.

At an April 15 forum on the trash/recycling program attended by 80 people, Isgro promised the city would look into having another hauler take recyclables when Sullivan’s cannot do it and Roy agreed. However, Roy said Friday that the city is not considering that option.

On Friday, Turner said the city initially bid for collection every other week, but the city decided to contract with Sullivan’s last June even though the company would only agree to pick up twice a month. Sullivan’s offered a “very appealing” contract price compared to other bidders, Turner said.

“We don’t want to pay any more than we have to,” he said.

Peter McGuire — 861-9239

pmcguire@centralmaine.com

Twitter: PeteL_McGuire

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