Clearwater Single-Stream Recycling Contract
The city of Clearwater’s solid waste staff presented the Clearwater City Council with a potential long-term, single-stream recycling contract option at the Aug. 14 Work Session meeting, which was unanimously approved by the Clearwater City Council at the Aug. 17 City Council meeting.
Clearwater has been negotiating a contract with Waste Connections of St. Petersburg, the same vendor that has been processing our recycling since a short-term contract with them was established Feb. 16, 2023. The contract will go into effect next month, and the city will pay $120 per ton of recycling and receive revenue sharing for our recyclables based on the current market.
Recycling Customer Credits
At the Aug. 14 Work Session, solid waste staff also brought forward the topic of customer credits for recycling, in response to the discovery by the city that recycling had not been properly processed July 2022 to December 2022. The issue of credits was discussed and unanimously approved by the Clearwater City Council at the Aug. 17 City Council meeting.
Credits will be in the form of free service, or not charging customers, for recycling for six months. The recycling charge is $3.38 per month on a resident's utility bill. Starting in October 2023, residents will not see this charge on their utility bills for six months. (Recycling rates increase to $3.51 effective Oct. 1, per ordinance and five-year rate schedule(PDF, 537KB) that was approved Sept. 5, 2019.) Customers who have moved out of Clearwater can request a credit by contacting Clearwater Utility Customer Service at (727) 562-4600.
Our Commitment
Clearwater is committed to recycling right. We would like to thank our residents for continuing to recycle. In April 2023, we launched a new dashboard at MyClearwater.com/WeAreRecycling to show how many tons of recycling is being collected and processed each month.
See How Much We Are Recycling
Since February 2023, the city of Clearwater has collected anywhere from 620 to 871 tons per month of recycling from residents and delivered it to our recycling processor, Waste Connections in St. Petersburg, where it has been accepted and processed as recycling.
"Clearwater is recycling, and we are committed to recycling in full transparency," said Kervin St. Aimie, the new director of Clearwater Solid Waste and Recycling. St. Aimie is a long-time Clearwater Public Utilities manager with a track record of hard work and integrity. He was promoted to solid waste assistant director in January 2023 and was officially promoted to director July 29. "Our team is committed to correcting the city's recycling problem and doing the right thing."