ND North News

Minot’s curbside recycling program is ready to roll.

The program will begin collecting recyclable materials on July 17 and July 18. Here’s what the schedule looks like for City of Minot sanitation collection customers:

Monday/Thursday collection days

Week 1: Monday – recycling. Thursday - garbage

Week 2: Monday – garbage. Thursday - garbage

Week 3: Monday – recycling. Thursday - garbage

Week 4: Monday – garbage. Thursday – garbage

Tuesday/Friday collection days

Week 1: Tuesday – recycling. Friday - garbage

Week 2: Tuesday – garbage. Friday - garbage

Week 3: Tuesday – recycling. Friday - garbage

Week 4: Tuesday – garbage. Friday – garbage

Utilities Director Jason Sorenson presented information to the City Council on July 10, showing that 10,032 recycling carts had been delivered by that day, with a total of 685 residents who had chosen to opt out of the program. 

“We went into this with a statistically valid survey that said perhaps 40 percent of the public wouldn’t be supportive of a recycling program. We have more carts to deliver, but we’re definitely trending much better than that number,” Sorenson said.

He asked the residents who have opted out to be patient for their recycling carts to be picked up.

“Please be patient. We can’t do the collections until we get a full spreadsheet back from the company that did the roll-out,” Sorenson said. “That way we have a good, accurate list that we can send to our utility billing department to make sure the people who opt out don’t get charged for recycling. It might take us a couple of weeks to get to all of them.”

Sorenson said there have been some misconceptions about what will ultimately happen to the recyclable materials Minot collects through the program.

“There seem to be some assumptions that we’re going to put it in a truck, haul it to Minnesota and it’s going to get put into a landfill, and we are not doing that,” Sorenson added.

Christina Wolf, recycling coordinator for the City of Minot, said the materials will be sorted in Shakopee, Minn., and sent into the market. The materials will not go into a landfill, and it is illegal to send it overseas. The City will receive roughly 80 percent of the proceeds of selling the recyclable materials into the market.

Original source can be found here