CITY TO DELAY TWO-BAG LIMIT FOR TRASH

Cape Girardeau residents won't be saddled with a two-bag limit on weekly trash pickups this year.

The city staff, with the blessing of the City Council, plans to postpone implementing the two-bag limit and volume-based trash billing for another year.

Instead of implementing it this July, the city staff is looking at a July 1, 1996, start.

Mayor Al Spradling III predicted Tuesday the delay would be popular with the city's more than 10,000 residential customers.

The public, he said, views a two-bag limit as a trash fee hike.

"People feel there is not a need to go to a two-bag limit at this point," he said.

Still, volume-based billing is on the horizon. Assistant City Manager and Public Works Director Doug Leslie said it's a growing trend as cities seek to meet recycling mandates.

Acting on a task force report on solid waste, the council last year hiked the monthly residential trash fee to $12.13 and agreed to plans for volume-based billing.

Under the plan, residents would pay an added charge for the city to pick up more than two bags of trash a week. Currently, residents can put out three bags of trash.

City officials say volume-based trash billing would encourage recycling and reduce the amount of trash going into landfills.

Leslie said the city is working toward a state-mandated goal of reducing the amount of trash going into Missouri landfills by 40 percent by 1998.

But implementing volume-based billing poses some difficulties, Leslie said.

The difficulties:

-- Establishing the base price and determining how much to charge for additional bags.

-- Implementing such a system without prompting trash customers to resort to illegal dumping.

-- Deciding on a base rate that will cover all the solid waste costs, including recycling expenses.

-- Distributing trash stickers to more than 10,000 residential customers.

Currently, 2,200 of the city's customers are using three cans for their household refuse. The two-bag limit would force them to buy additional stickers, stuff more trash into two cans or recycle more, city officials said.

Leslie said the city won't be raising trash fees for the coming fiscal year because revenues have been adequate to support the service.

Public Works Environmental Services Coordinator Steve Cook said the move would lend stability to the solid waste program, allow more study of trash programs in nearby states, allow citizens another year to develop better recycling habits and ease the transition to the two-bag limit.

Leslie said some states, such as Iowa, have mandated volume-based trash billing.

He said volume-based trash billing could reduce the amount of trash going into landfills, but at the same increase expenses on the recycling side.