ECUA customers may have to pay 9.5% more and choose between recycling or second trash can

Emerald Coast Utilities Authority customers may soon be paying more whether they want a recycling can or a second trash can.

The ECUA board voted last week to raise sanitation rates by 9.5% and allow customers to decide if they want their currently included recycling can to be swapped to a second trash can.

Previously ECUA allowed customers to opt-in to curbside recycling when opening their account as a service that was included in their trash bill. Under the new proposal, customers will decide whether they want a recycling can or a second trash can instead, but regardless will be paying a higher rate.

For the average residential customer, the increase amounts to a $2.86 a month increase that will bring the total sanitation portion of an ECUA bill to $33.03 a month, according to board member Dale Perkins.

ECUA is attempting to get a handle on people putting unrecyclable trash into curbside recycling cans, as well as the drop in commodity prices for recyclable materials that are sold to be reused.

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Perkins made the proposal the board adopted as an alternative to an ECUA staff proposal to only raise sanitation rates by 3% but start charging customers $3 a month for the recycling can that is currently provided for free of charge.

The ECUA staff proposal also included lowering the rate for a second garbage can from $4.60 a month to $2 a month to encourage people currently using their recycling can as a second garbage can to switch to an actual second garbage can.

The ECUA board did not support the staff proposal. Board member Vicki Campbell said the staff proposal, on its face, punished people for recycling.

Perkins made his alternative proposal as a way to accomplish the same objective without punishing people who recycle and said it could be marketed to people who don't want to recycle as a "free" second trash can.

"We don't want people recycling who don't want to recycle," Perkins said. "There's a difference between somebody that puts cardboard boxes in — and there's a piece of Styrofoam accidentally in a cardboard box — and somebody who puts coffee grounds, baby diapers and dog hair and stuff like that in there because they're just using it as a second can."

Local governments like Pensacola, Fort Walton Beach, Okaloosa County, Fairhope, Alabama, and Mobile, Alabama, also take recycling to ECUA's recycling facility.

ECUA is also raising rates on its municipal recycling customers, and Executive Director Bruce Woody said he expects 20% of them to stop recycling with ECUA.

The city of Pensacola has already announced it will end its curbside recycling program on Oct. 1 and go to a twice-a-week trash pickup instead.

Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves has said city staff is working on a new recycling program to replace it, which may include a manned drop-off center or charging more for a recycling can.

ECUA provides trash pick-up service to most unincorporated areas of Escambia County, which amounts to about 75,000 customer accounts.

The vote last week was not final. The ECUA board will hold a public hearing on the proposed changes, which also include a 5% increase on water and sewer customers, on Aug. 22 at 3 p.m. at its headquarters at 9255 Sturdevant St.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: ECUA customers may see rate increase for sanitation water and sewer