The City of Jacksonville is working on two separate recycling issues, as well as a citywide contract for a garbage service.

City Clerk Skip Bradshaw says the city is currently working on a deal with BLH Computers for the disposal of surplus computer monitors and televisions by city residents: “This contract is so people can take their televisions [that break down] as they need them rather than storing them until June when we have the whole city clean up. This way, they can bring them directly to BLH, and then, monthly, the city will receive an invoice that will tell us the address of the people who have recycled their TV or computer screen. He won’t give us their names, but he will give us an address and what they returned. Then the city pays for it on a monthly basis.

The city was billed $19,000 in this year’s city cleanup just for the disposal of old TVs and computer monitors, with the majority of the bill going towards fuel and labor costs works for the television recycling program. The hope is with the television/monitor recycling program under the direct management of BLH that it will eliminate or reduce most of these costs, resulting in lower billings to the city.

Alderman for Ward Two, Lori Large-Oldenettel, noted at the July 25 city council meeting that by having the one-year return agreement, people would no longer have to clutter their residences with the unwanted televisions and/or computer monitors. She also said it would reduce the risk of fly spills in the outskirts of town.

Bradshaw says there are certain rules to the TV/Monitor recycling program. Residents will only be allowed to return two televisions/monitors per year per household: “This year will be a little different. Residents will still be allowed to turn in 2 by the end of the year. Then they will have 2 for all of next year – 2023. The program is for residents of Jacksonville only.

Bradshaw says the new TV/monitor recycling program coincides with the city’s attempt to expand its current recycling program for normal recycle products like paper, plastics and aluminum. The current recycling contract ends on August 31. The extension will come with a 4% cost increase with the expectation that the recycling contract and the new waste transport contract will be with the same supplier. The city council is expected to vote on both proposals, including a new waste hauler city contract, at their next meetings in August.

Bradshaw says he requested a request for proposal (RFP)/request for quotation (RFQ) from the cities of Morton, Rantoul and Washington to compare and work on a contract for Jacksonville: “Basically we wanted to take a look at the contracts who they kind of had to see what we wanted to do. The main thing we wanted to do was take a look at their RFP. We wanted to see what they were putting in their RFP and how they were putting it were formulating so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can take what they’ve done and make our own. I got two on Tuesday, so we need to look at them. Then we can come up with our own request for proposals and hopefully have it ready before the next city council meeting.”

Bradshaw says the goal of having a citywide contract is to reduce citizens’ bills. Garbage service has been a controversial topic since GFL took over Area Waste Management and then Trash Queen in recent months. Bradshaw says regular garbage pickup service has somewhat returned to normal in Jacksonville, but billing has been the top complaint city officials have heard from city residents. Bradshaw says that with the city contract, it would streamline GFL billing and hopefully level prices for everyone across the city and eventually bring them down.