(Orleans)– There was more discussion at Monday evening’s Orleans City Council meeting over ongoing issues at a recycling drop-off site the city oversees. The city of Orleans manages the site, which is open to residents throughout the county. In exchange, the city receives a stipend from the county. But Mayor Bill Maas says things may be coming to a head as issues continue with things being dumped off that don’t belong there and other items not being put in the proper bins…
“You know we’re kind of doing this as a favor to the whole county, really. I mean it’s an inconvenience for the city of Orleans because we don’t have any city employees that can go around and clean things up. We simply live by people’s good graces that have come and just helped out. They’ve volunteered and help pick stuff up and I’ve done the same and numerous people have in Orleans. But we want to be able to keep this going. If people don’t start cooperating we’re going to end up not having the ability to be able to continue in this program and I hate to see that, you know.”
Maas says there’s another issue coming into play as well…
“There’s a lot of items that aren’t recyclable any more. There’s no market for them. And people don’t realize that. So actually what we end up doing is we’re paying two different companies to take care of our trash, almost, is what it amounts to. It’s a problem and it isn’t just here in Orleans, Iowa. It’s all over. I mean we have this problem all over.”
The Orleans City Council went so far Monday evening as to direct Maas to get figures on what it would take to start up a curb side collection. Maas says the same thing was talked about several years ago…
“One of the things we have that could help maybe defray some of the cost is the fact that during the summer months we have two pick ups per week and if we could lower that to one pick up per week, we could maybe use one of those to offset and have recycling come in and do it curbside. The problem is that doesn’t help people who live out in the rural areas that depend on our recycling bins and things. The county has been more than willing to work with us and that’s really been appreciated, but I guess if I had the solution I’d really be somebody then.”
Maas adds the installation of security cameras at the drop off site may also be a consideration. The matter will come back to the council for further discussion at their meeting in May.
