Tonight, the Pierre City Commission took action to ensure that Pierre residents are not the only ones paying for the processing and disposal of yard waste and recyclable materials at Pierre’s solid waste facility.
The City currently has yard waste and recycling bins at the city’s solid waste facility and recycling bins at the DakotaMart parking lot. Anyone can use those bins, whether they are City residents or not. However, only City residential utility customers have been covering the cost of those services. Recycling and yard waste operations and disposal have historically been paid for by the recycling fee that all City residential utility customers pay with their monthly utility bill.
“To make things fair, now all people who use the service will help pay for the service,” said John Childs, City Engineer.
With tonight’s Commission action, the City will enclose its recycling and yard waste bins at the solid waste facility and remove the recycling bins from the DakotaMart parking lot. By contacting the City, Pierre residential utility customers can obtain a card that provides them access to the recycling bins. All other users will need to pay a $3 fee each time they use the drop off bins.
“We hate to discourage recycling and yard waste cleanup. But even more than that, we hate for Pierre residents to pay for someone else’s materials,” said Childs.
Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 3, the City’s yard waste and recyclable bins will be located behind a gate at Pierre’s Solid Waste Facility on East Park Street. Only Pierre residential utility customers will be provided access cards; all other users will need to pay $3 per load to use the yard waste and recycling bins. People who are paying with a debit or credit card will be able to access the bins at any time. People who want to pay cash will need to come to the solid waste facility during normal operating hours.
Each residential utility customer will soon be mailed information about how to acquire and use the access cards.