BROWNSTOWN

Brownstown residents soon will see an uptick in their sewer bill.

With the town council choosing to go from a recycling bin to a recycling cart, the monthly charge for trash and recycling will be $12.55 — $9.05 for trash and $3.50 for recycling.

Now, residents pay $11.35, and it’s a line item on their sewer bill.

A trash and recycling contract with Rumpke of Indiana recently was unanimously approved by the town council.

Residents still will use their brown 95-gallon carts for trash, but their red recycling bins will be replaced by green carts similar to the size of the trash carts. Besides size, a big difference with the recycling cart is it will have a lid. The current bins do not have a lid.

Richard Leslie with Rumpke of Indiana said the plan is to start with the new recycling carts around the first of July.

“That way, it will give (Rumpke) time to get the carts in so we can get them set up and get them distributed,” he said.

Leslie said Rumpke would notify town hall to share information with residents as to when they should place their old recycling bins at the curb to be swapped with the new ones.

Council member Sally Cate Lawson said the lid will help because if a storm rolls through town and people have recycling bins at the curb, the items inside can get blown around a neighborhood.

Council President John Nolting said a few residents have approached him about that issue.

“That’s the complaint I’ve had from people. They put recycling out the night before and have the storm, and the next thing you know, you have milk containers and paper and everything else all over the street,” he said. “With (the cart with a lid), it won’t blow out.”

Council member Bill Sweeney said he hadn’t heard any complaints from residents about the current recycling system, but he didn’t have a problem with switching to the carts because there’s not much of a cost difference.

Fellow council member Matt Smith agreed, saying recycling is a value-added service in the community. All residents are charged the same whether they recycle or not.

Nolting said he has seen a similar trash and recycling process with carts for both in other communities, including Seymour.

Rumpke bills Brownstown for trash and recycling collection, and the residents’ monthly fee is based on the number of units.

The Jackson County Solid Waste Management District, which does business as Jackson County Recycling District, provides the town with $7,200 per year toward the cost of recycling as long as the trash goes to a Jackson County landfill. Rumpke takes the recycling to Cincinnati, Ohio.

For every ton of trash that goes into the landfill, Rumpke pays the solid waste management district a dollar, said Debbie Hackman, director of Jackson County Solid Waste Management District.

Hackman’s board has an agreement with Brownstown and Crothersville that if their trash stays in the county, tipping fees from Rumpke will be given back to the towns. That money goes into each town’s general fund.

Hackman said the annual amount the towns receive started out as $4,800 a few years ago but has since increased to $7,200. That helps Hackman support local recycling programs, and no tax dollars have to be collected.