Bismarck Solid Waste - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Bismarck Solid Waste

Rising Diesel fuel costs and a population increase could soon take a toll on Bismarck Residents.
A new proposal could mean an increase in their trash collection costs because of rising expenses.
Along with that, Bismarck residents could also see a little more green on the curbs.

 Bismarck's current municipal waste landfill only has 13 years of capacity left.
    Now, the Bismarck City Commission will hear a proposal for future cells on the landfill and the costs that could come with it-- based on a review by Houston Engineering.
(John Warford/ Mayor of Bismarck) "This information will be used for as a start for our really meaningful public discussion on these issues. The issue with the health of our landfill the sustainability and the fees that are necessary to keep our landfill sustainable."
    Bismarck Residents would see the greatest effect of the proposal at their curbside pickup-- taking the current cost to residents for trash collection from $9.55 a month to $13.59 a month.
(Mike Seminary/ Bismarck City Commissioner) "We have subsidized citizens for quite a period of time primarily the citizens pay for the landfill but the biggest contributors to the landfill are commercial industrial and so we have subsidized what the taxpayers pay for that utility since 1985, 95 whatever the year is and so now we have to have an accurate reflection of what it costs to pick up garbage so we have to talk about that."
    A separate proposal from the new revenue structure that could help the landfill's sustainability is all about going green.
(Jeff Heintz/ Public Works) "We want to provide a recycling proposal to the commission that is simple to understand that is easy for the residence to participate in and that gets us the maximum amount of recyclables out of the waste stream. What we're proposing is a single sort recycling system."
    The proposed system would have a 96 gallon container for residents that they can put all of their recyclable materials into without having to sort.
Bismarck City commissioners will discuss the two proposals at Tuesday night's meeting.
Additional costs for recycling would be between $2.50 and $3.50 a month for residents.