Waste Pro Community Marketer Dayna Miller addresses the Williston City Council as Waste Pro Division Manager Trip Lancaster listens.

By Terry Witt –  Spotlight Senior Reporter

            The coronavirus seems to rear its ugly head in some of the strangest places.

            In the latest twist, the virus prompted the Florida Department of Corrections to stop sending female inmates to the Levy County Landfill to sort out recycling materials from residential garbage.

            Without inmate work squads searching through garbage for recyclable materials, haulers have been told to dump the recyclables in the same pile with the regular residential garbage at the landfill until further notice.

            Recycling of residential garbage stopped several months ago at the landfill, according to County Coordinator Wilbur Dean.

            “The state was trying to make sure they didn’t get it (the coronavirus) introduced from outside to their inmate population,” Dean said.

             Recycling will resume when the state DOC believes it is safe for inmates to sort through residential garbage to pick out recyclables.

            The county hasn’t previously publicly discussed the fact that recycling of residential garbage had been halted at the landfill. The subject surfaced on Aug. 18 at the Williston City Council meeting during contract talks with Waste Pro.

            The council voted 5-0 to accept Waste Pro’s offer for a three-year contract that would increase rates by 2 percent the first year, which works out to 26 cents per month. Waste Pro can request an increase equal to the consumer price index the following two years of the contract.

            Council members said final approval of the three-year contract would have to wait until after the council reviewed the contract language and made whatever changes were needed.

            Mayor Jerry Robinson said the Waste Pro contract from 2012 contained provisions that were not in the 2017 contract, including language dealing with recycling.

            Goodman said he signed the 2017 contract as the council president without being aware of changes that were made by the former city manager.

            The subject of recycling consumed nearly an hour of the council’s time.

            Division Director Trip Lancaster said the county has directed Waste Pro to dump recyclables in the same pile with household garbage at the recycling building. He said the county said they would do the best they could to recycle without state inmates.

            Lancaster said Waste Pro continues to return every Thursday to pick up recyclables from Williston residents. Apparently, the practice will continue in an effort to encourage people to recycle.

            But the changes to the county recycling program caused confusion in Williston among some Waste Pro customers.

            “My neighbors on my street called me up on this issue of recycling. They called me up and said I just saw Waste Pro pick up my recycling and put it in the truck with the rest of the garbage,” Goodman said to Lancaster and Waste Pro Community Marketer Dayna Miller. “You told me you recycle and what the county does with it is the county’s thing.”

            Goodman demanded to know if Waste Pro was still recycling. He wanted to know what to tell his neighbors.

            Lancaster said Waste Pro continues to pick up recyclables.

            “What we’re doing now, if they (residents) have it out, we take it,” said Lancaster. “He (Landfill Administrative Manager Rod Hastings) tells me they are going to pull the actual recyclables out as much as they can. How much that is, I don’t know. He said they are trying to separate the best they can.”

            Councilwoman Debra Jones said she was told to place the recycled materials in the trash can with the regular trash.

            “It was supposedly on one of our utility bills,” she said.

            “That has been changed,” Goodman said. “Since I found out where that came from, it was not correct. It should not have been put on a utility bill and won’t be on further utility bills.”

            “So what are we supposed to believe?” Jones said.

            “That’s what we’re talking about,” Goodman said.

            “That’s what we told our people to do. If they’re not sorting it we might as well put it together,” she responded.

            Later in the meeting, Interim City Manager Dennis Strow asked if he should remove the message from utility bills instructing people to not recycle.

            Goodman responded that he would continue to place his recyclables on the curb. He said if Waste Pro didn’t pick it up he would complain.

            Strow never received an answer from the full council on whether the message should be removed from utility bills.

            Dean said the county hasn’t found a cost-friendly way to replace the female inmates they lost from the recycling program.

            “It’s one of those things; there’s no way to offset the cost by hiring anybody,” Dean said. “Across the board, recyclables are paying so little. You take products like glass, there’s no place in the state to send glass anymore. All the counties across the state had to stop recycling glass because no one would take it.”

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City of Williston Regular Meeting August 18, 2020; Posted August 22, 2020