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The City of Houghton continues to try and encourage residents to use the curbside recycling service.
Winter weather can reduce the number of people willing to participate in the program.
Even so, City Manager Eric Waara says program is catching on.
Waara said, “Culturally, I think people have really embraced it. The goal for the state of Michigan is 35 percent by weight. For what we’re collecting, we’re running around that 23, 24 percent by weight, which is actually pretty good for just only being a little over a year into it.”
The city received a grant from the state of Michigan to purchase blue recycling bins and have made those bins available to residents at the Houghton City Center for just $10.
Waara says the city is still looking at ways to broaden recycling to businesses in town.
“It’s just very difficult because when you look at our downtown, we don’t have a lot of space and you start adding a second set of dumpsters out there, you start to run out of space really fast in certain cases,” said Waara.
Waara says the city is working with Waste Management on solutions to the problem.
