The Washington City Council took action on a proposed contract amendment to their 28E agreement for WEMIGA Waste at Tuesday’s meeting.

Operator Lynn Whaley has approached the council and the county board of supervisors that jointly own the recycling center about drastic changes in the recycling market that has cost WEMIGA to dispose of plastics and paper. The board of supervisors has presented an amendment that states the county and the city shall pay the net recycling expense to WEMIGA when the cost exceeds the profit.

Council member Steven Gault commented on the amendment, “I have no problem with recycling, but I have a problem with recycling if it’s going to cost money to do it. If you do it and you make money off of it as you recycle that’s fine and dandy. But the minute you start losing money and you come to us for money for something that we can put in a landfill for less money then we shouldn’t even be having this discussion as far as I’m concerned.”

Council member Elaine Moore says the city has set precedent in the past to amend contracts for the recycling center, “I also look at how much of a cost that we have implemented to start recycling. We’ve got recycling carts that we’ve passed out to everybody. The city has, I’m not even sure how much the city has done to bring the recycling program to its residents as well as the county and the recycling, what we have to have in our county, equipment for recycling. So I’m not real comfortable with saying, ‘Okay, we’re done with recycling,’ and all this other equipment goes to waste.”

The city council voted 4-2 approving the amendment which shows some changes from what the supervisors proposed, such as the amendment would go into effect retroactive to May 1st when the problem was first addressed by Whaley instead of 60 days after signing. The amendment will now be sent to the supervisors for their approval.