Staff Writer 

 The South Portland City Council is inviting residents, especially those living in the city’s 1,100 apartments and condominiums, to its next workshop to help figure out if they should be able to participate in the city’s recycling program. 

On Monday, councilors considered options to expand recycling pickup to include apartment and condominium complexes not already grandfathered into  the service, but ultimately agreed they need resident input to help make a final decision.

“I would rather see a more comprehensive needs assessment, more information from the condominium associations,” Councilor Patti Smith said. “We need to find a creative way to help people out and get them recycling.” 

City Manager Jim Gailey said expanding the city’s recycling pickup service to include apartments and condominium complexes could cost the city nearly $50,000, a cost councilors said will need to be justified by a majority of apartment and condominium residents who wanted the service.

“If we invite some of these associations to a workshop to figure out how many people are interested in recycling? [Inviting residents] might save us a lot of shadowboxing with ourselves. I’d like to get some real bodies down here,” Councilor Tom Coward said.

The $50,000 estimate, prepared by Pine Tree Waste General Manager Stu Axelrod, assumed the expansion would require sending a dumpster truck with two employees into every condominium and apartment complex in the city. He said it would take a day for a single truck to service the 1,100 units in the city, an option some councilors said was too expensive and potentially a liability for the city.

“Is it fiscally responsible to have the city pick up the expense when [condominium and apartment complexes] are allowed to have cluster housing and substandard streets?” Councilor Jim Soule asked. “Let’s put a face on that $50,000 cost. $50,000 will represent a police officer or a teacher aid. I think it’s time for some individual responsibility to step forward. I don’t want to be painted as being anti-recycling, but we need to look at the rational.”

Rather than sending a separate trash truck into the different residential areas, Councilor Linda Boudreau suggested the city provide willing participants with the town’s 65 gallon blue recycling containers, to be placed on a public way and picked up on the same schedule as the current program. 

“I can’t see us getting in there are picking it up, but what if they get it to the street like I do?” she asked.

Axelrod said aside from the cost of the new bins – up to $65 apiece – adding a few more blue containers on the side of the road would cost the city less than a dollar a week.

“From a collections perspective, the additional cost would be minimal to nothing,” he said.

Other councilors were apprehensive about offering a recycling pickup service to privately developed neighborhoods, as doing so could open up the issue of providing a trash service as well.

 “Rubbish will be another issue down the road,” Mayor Tom Blake said. 

“If you start this, yes it will be,” Councilor Maxine Beecher replied.

The next city council workshop is scheduled for March 9, although no agenda has been released.