Officials said that a second municipal collection site will be added on west Virginia Avenue if the program demand warrants.
The program will accept paper, plastic and aluminum products. Glass will not be accepted for now in the proposed program.
The hours of operation will be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
“It saves us money in what we would pay to the landfill to process,” City Councilor Mike McGrew said. “It’s definitely more ecological in terms of being green. There’s a lot of people who have contacted us who want to have recycling, and we’re trying to provide that for them.”
Green Star Co. of Sand Springs is providing the recycling bins to the city for the program for the first three months of operation, after which Bartlesville city will consider purchasing its own, officials said.
EmployAbility, which employs developmentally disabled residents and ran the private program until May 2009, initially approached the city council for entering into a contract that would have provided $70,000 annually for the organization to provide recycling.
The organization later withdrew its offer, deciding to concentrate more on finding additional employment avenues for its clients.
The city officials estimate that it will cost $75,000 to $80,000 annually to process recyclables from Bartlesville city, which must be transported to the Sand Springs Green Star facility. The market for the products remains small, but the city is hopeful it will pick up as the economy recovers.
Bartlesville city had a curbside recycling program in the 1990s, but it was discontinued due to high operational costs. City Manager Ed Gordon said that the weekly curbside pick-ups cost Bartlesville city’s municipal budget $1.76 million over the course of three years.
