PORT ANGELES — It’s in the can. The city will enter a new era of garbage collection and disposal beginning July 1.
Port Angeles will be closing its landfill at the end of West 18th Street at the end of the year and replacing it with a transfer station, composting operation and moderate risk waste disposal operation.
The City Council unanimously approved changes to the garbage collection and disposal ordinances Tuesday night that pave the way for the change.
The city is planning a direct mailing campaign to explain the garbage collection options to customers, who then would have to sign up for the services they wanted.
City residents must choose whether they want their garbage picked up weekly or semimonthly, whether they want recycling containers and whether they want to pay a little more for curbside yard waste disposal.
The current residential monthly rate for a 90-gallon garbage can picked up weekly, including curbside recycling and yard waste collection, is $21.85 per month.
Under the new collection rates, residents can keep that $21.85 monthly rate by switching to semimonthly pickup.
If residents decide to keep weekly garbage pickup, the monthly rate would increase to $27.30 effective July 1.
But a recycling container — everything except glass will go into one 96-gallon container — must be requested and a third container for yard waste will cost an additional $7.05 per month.
After July 1, curbside glass recycling will be replaced with a drop-off area at the transfer station site and three or four drop-off sites around the city that haven’t been selected yet.
Yard waste is being separated from garbage and other recycleables and put into a composting operation that will produce bulk compost for sale.
The new residential garbage collection rates will take effect July 1. New commercial collection rates will start Jan. 1, 2007.