City of Sigourney to pursue contract with County

In late September, Sigourney City Officials announced that effective Nov. 1, the City of Sigourney would be removing recycling bins near the city shop building on Walnut Street, effectively ending any recycling program the City of Sigourney was still maintaining.

Since that announcement, the City has decided to pursue a contract with the County to allow for City residents to use the Citizens Convenience Center, also referred to as the Recycling Center, for recycling only. The decision came after a group of around 10 citizens attended the Oct. 16 City Council meeting and expressed disbelief and strong disapproval over the decision to remove the recycling bins. Mayor Doug Glandon stated after the meeting that he believed much of the strong opinions were the result of a misinformation, or a lack of information, regarding the City’s cost to maintain a recycling program.

“I think a lot of people didn’t quite realize the whole cost of what it was costing us,” Glandon said.

In the Spring, the City Council approved a contract with Cox Sanitation to allow for the City to dispose of recyclable materials at the Cox Sanitation facility in North English. Glandon said that, unfortunately, due to misuse of the recycling bins, the City’s costs were increasing more than what was initially agreed upon.

“What we were paying Cox before was $100 a month, but we had to hook the trailer up, we had to pull it up there, we had to take the garbage out of our bins, and then they opened up our bins and dumped it on the floor, and if garbage comes out, then we had to clean it up, and then Cox was going to start charging us if he had to get rid of garbage,” Glandon said. “Our expenses were starting to get more but I think it’s because we had more than the local citizens putting their recycling in,” he added.

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