Cape council approves recycling contract

Cape Girardeau residents soon will be able to recycle their plastic bags.

The city council Monday night approved a five-year contract with Inter-Rail Inc. of Cape Girardeau to buy and haul away recyclable materials, everything from newsprint and cardboard to aluminum cans and discarded appliances.

For the first time, the city will be able to recycle plastic grocery bags.

Until now, the city had no market for plastic bags. No firm was willing to haul off the bags at no cost to the city, officials said.

So thousands of bags each week get dumped in the trash and ultimately end up in a regional landfill.

But that should change within the next month once the new contract is implemented, said Steve Cook, public works assistant director.

The city will only get $10 a ton for the plastic bags. But Cook said the city isn't doing it for the money. "We're primarily getting it out of the landfill," he said after the council meeting.

Mayor Jay Knudtson said he's glad there's a market now for plastic bags. "It's been identified as a big source of litter in town," he said.

Inter-Rail will pay the city $50 a ton for cardboard and $25 a ton for newspapers and magazines. Junk mail and mixed paper will earn the city $15 a ton.

The company will haul away plastic bottles and glass containers for free, but it won't pay the city for those materials. Cook said there's no market for such items right now.

The price per ton for recyclable materials can be raised or lowered under the contract if the market increases or decreases by more than 15 percent, Cook said.

Over the past fiscal year that ended on June 30, the city recycled more than 1,424 tons of materials which were purchased by various recycling firms.

The city earned $31,542 from its recycling efforts. If the new contract with Inter-Rail had been in effect, the city would have earned $42,438, Cook said.

The company plans to handle all of the city's recyclable materials, transporting them to their facility at Mounds, Ill.

In other action, the council kept city property tax rates at the same level as the past fiscal year. The tax levy for the new fiscal year that begin July 1 is 53.87 cents per $100 assessed valuation. Most of that money goes to the general fund. The tax revenue also helps fund the public library, as well as the city's animal control and other nuisance abatement efforts.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123