The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Photo: Somerset County.
The Somerset County pilot single-stream recycling program that was set to begin in the township this month has been put on hold.
John Kendzulak, Somerset County’s recycling superintendent, said that no bids were received this summer for the program, so “(t)he County is currently evaluating the market for single stream recycling and has made a decision to not rebid this contract at this time.”
The bid opening was scheduled for Aug. 26, he said.
Kendzulak said he “could not say” whether the program will be totally shelved.
Franklin was slated to be the third town in the county to switch to single-stream recycling, following Green Brook and South Bound Brook. The program had been touted since at least January, when Paul McCall, the county’s director of public works, described it to the Township Council.
In January, the thought was that the program would start in July. The start date was later set to the end of October, after an inventory of township residences had been completed.
The program was to have used 45- and 95-gallon carts, into which residents could put all of their recyclables. The carts would then have been picked up by special “one-armed” trucks that would dump the contents into truck beds.
The size of the containers – the 45-gallon cart is 45 inches high, 24 inches wide and 29 inches deep – prohibited some residents in town home and condominium communities from participating. That’s because either units are on second stories or higher, or the carts can’t be fit in a unit’s garage.
The county decided that in those cases, residents would continue to be served using the current 20-gallon containers, Kendzulak said.
A number of planned communities requested inclusion in the program, according to bid documents for the project. Those communities are Beacon Hill at Somerset, Kingsberry Acres, Forest Gate, Whitehall Manor, Canal Walk, Renaissance at Raritan Valley, Quailbrook East, Somerset Run, Carriage Homes, Sountryside, Society Hill, Quail Crest, Sterling Point and Regency.
In January, McCall said that although starting the program in Green Brook and South Bound Brook was “painful,” it has yielded positive results.
He said Green Brook has increased its recyclable tonnage by 20 percent, and South Bound Book by 8 percent.
According to the bid documents, there are more than 15,000 homes in the township which generate more than 4,000 tons of recyclables a year.
