City Gives Incentives To Recycle

The partnership with Recyclebank rewards residents based on the weight of their recyclables. The more a household recycles, the more "rewards" they can earn from local stores. It comes as the city reduces the frequency of recycling pickup to once a week, with bigger bins and a "single stream" where all recycling can go into the same bin.

"The program could cost up to $1.1 million a year, which the city would collect with $1.20 fees on monthly city utility bills, Solid Waste Director Lawrence Mikolajczyk said.

'There is a cost,' Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez said. "One of the things we were striving to avoid was an increase in fees. We said, 'Let's not add any rate increase when we're switching to once-a-week pickup.'"