Fees increasing for garbage, yard waste pickup in Cedar Rapids

Having your garbage and yard waste picked up is likely to cost you more under a plan by the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency to charge more to bury it in a landfill or turn it into compost.

The agency's board of directors has approved a tentative new budget that raises the tipping fee for garbage 8.6 percent, from $35 a ton to $38. It also raises the fees for yard waste and other compost materials 20 percent, from $15 a ton to $18.

The increased fees are slated to go into effect July 1. The agency board casts a final vote Dec. 15.

Karmin McShane, the agency's executive director, said the increase - the first since 1994 - should raise another $540,000 a year, bringing annual revenue from tipping fees to $6.855 million.

McShane said the extra revenue will help pay for additional landfill monitoring and for programs that work to divert material from the landfill. She said the agency also will face additional costs to re-close and monitor its Site 1 landfill downriver from downtown Cedar Rapids, which was reopened to take in flood debris.

She said the increase in compost fees still won't cover the cost to create compost, which the agency gives away.

Mark Jones, superintendent of Cedar Rapids' Solid Waste and Recycling Division, said the increased fees will cost the city about $100,000 more a year. The city landfills about 20,000 tons of garbage and directs about 15,000 tons of yard waste, including leaves from the fall pickup, a year.

He said the new cost spread over 38,000 residential customers would mean an increase of $2.63 a year per household, or 21 cents a month.

Tom Newbanks, the city of Marion's public services director, said the tipping fee increase could raise his operation's costs by $20,000 a year. He said the waste agency's plan to raise the cost to handle recyclables from $10 a ton to $20 at the Site 2 landfill on Marion's northeast edge also will impact his city. Cedar Rapids takes its recyclables directly to the recycler.

About 80 percent of what comes into the agency's landfills comes from commercial and industrial users, McShane said.

She thought the biggest private haulers likely would see a $300 a day increase in fees at Site 2.

Ted Carter, whose family owns ABC Disposal in Hiawatha, said Tuesday some of the additional costs likely would be passed on to customers, though he said his company would work to improve how it manages garbage.

Iowa City's landfill charges a tipping fee of $38.50 a ton for Iowa City residents and $43.50 a ton for other Johnson County residents. The city is not planning a fee increase, said Dave Elias, wastewater and landfill superintendent.