Iowa City to educate residents on recycling

The city will keep its curbside recycling program as is, but it will undertake an education campaign to try to get residents to recycle more and may expand recycling to multifamily homes.

The City Council at a work session Monday night sided with staff in deciding not to switch to “single-stream recycling” – at least for the time being. Under that system, residents wouldn't have to separate items in recycling bins as they do now and instead would toss everything in together.

Single-stream would cost the city more money, and residents would face a rate increase of at least 75 cents per month, to $4.85, to cover the cost. Also, more loads could be contaminated with garbage and would have to be sent to the landfill.

The city had explored going to single-stream curbside recycling as a way to boost recycling rates. Those have been stagnant for several years at about 200 tons annually, which translates into about 16 pounds per month for each household that has the option of recycling, said Jen Jordan, Iowa City's recycling coordinator.

That lags behind many of Iowa's larger cities, Jordan said. For example, Cedar Rapids households recycle an average of 37 pounds each month, she said.

Education programs have been shown to increase recycling, Jordan said, and the city will try that route before reporting back to the council in a year. Door-to-door and online efforts will be part of that. An estimated cost for the campaign was not available.

“I'm really hoping we can have a significant increase,” Jordan said.

The city also will consider changing the zoning code to require recycling services for all new multifamily units larger than a four-plex and developing options for existing buildings. About 45 percent of Iowa City's households live in multifamily units without recycling, Jordan said, and expanding recycling to those is the No. 1 question she receives from the public.