Pensacola Mayor D.C. Reeves held his weekly press conference Tuesday morning, covering a range of city updates from a major shift in recycling drop-off operations to progress on the New Palafox streetscape project.
Recycling Drop-Off Moving from Summit to Leonard Street
The city’s assisted recycling drop-off location at Summit Boulevard is closing May 4, and the program is moving to the sanitation services office at 100 West Leonard Street—a move that will slash annual operating costs by roughly 90%.
The Summit location currently costs the city $258,984 per year to operate, requiring a five-person crew running up to six days a week during the holidays, for a total of 218 cleanups annually. Despite that level of service, contamination rates at the Summit site are estimated at 85% to 90%, meaning nearly everything dropped off there ends up in the landfill anyway.
The new Leonard Street site will be more secure, managed by a single employee using existing equipment and infrastructure already on-site at the city’s sanitation building. Annual operating cost: $30,000…