Recycling moving to St. Paul alleys

The city of St. Paul has struck a new deal with its residential recycling partner, and says pickup service will be moving to the city's alleys next year.

The city said Friday it has signed a new 64-month deal with Eureka Recycling to provide single sort recycling to more than 78,000 residences in the city. Commercial customers will still have to arrange their own pickup. Many residents will no longer have to put their recycling on the front curbs.

The city put its recycling business out for bid in December and got four responses. It wound up negotiating a deal with the current provider. Eureka has been the city's recycling contractor since 2000.

Ellen Biales, administrative programs manager with public works, said single sort 65-gallon recycling bins will start to show up in alleys, where there are alleys in the city.

"We think the contract is really going to serve the city well," Biales said. "There'll also be a few additional items that we can pick up."

She said that will include some forms of food packaging, toilet paper tubes, and cardboard food containers.

"Residents ... can be expecting to see a delivery of a recyling bin, probably sometime starting in late October through November," she said.

The bins, though, won't be emptied until January. Regular curbside pickup will continue until then.

Biales said the deal has a lower cost for processing recyclables, down from $65.07 to $61.25 per ton. The city also gets an 80 percent revenue share for sales of what's recovered. That's up from 50 percent in the last deal.

The cost of pickup will also drop, from $4.03 a month to $3.67 a month.

But there's a catch: the city will have to buy tens of thousands of new wheeled recycling bins, at a cost of more than $4 million. Biales said Ramsey County has agreed to pick up part of the cost, "which is really great. We're really excited about that." A grant may cover some of the total as well, but the city will still have to pay well over $1 million up front.