Recycling numbers parallel garbage collection

Today is the third pickup for the single-stream curbside pilot recycling program in Holiday Hills, and preliminary numbers for the first two pickups suggest a correlation between the amount of recyclables and the amount of trash people set out.
At a Winchester Municipal Utilities Commission meeting Thursday night, WMU General Manager Mike Flynn said at its Aug. 5 recycling pickup, WMU collected 2.26 tons of recyclables, and 1.47 tons at its Aug. 12 pickup. At trash pickup, WMU¿collected 9.02 tons of solid waste on Aug. 9 and 10.12 tons on Aug. 16.
“So, you can see that there is a correlation between the recyclables and the solid waste that we were receiving in that area,” Flynn said.
Flynn said he did not have an explanation for the lower tonnage collected at the second pickup, and he thought maybe everybody was excited about the new service.
“I¿think everybody would have a different scenario or take on why the first one was basically almost a ton more than the second one,” he said. “. … It’s just so early in the program that until we get two, three months worth of data, there’s not going to be any way to rationalize what’s happening out there.”
Flynn said WMU¿is keeping numbers and will create a spreadsheet to show more concrete numbers and development of the program.
“Hopefully the end outcome of this, our review of this at the six-month period, will be very favorable,” he said.
In other business:
— The commission approved a bid of $32,754 for filter media rehabilitation at the Water Treatment Plant. WMU’s 2011-12 Capital Budget had allocated $300,000 for replacement of the filter media, however, S4 Water Sales and Service, LLC, did testing and determined that cleaning of the media would be a viable option.
In a letter to the commission, Flynn said surrounding utilities companies have had success with this treatment, including Richmond Utilities and Bowling Green Municipal Utilities.
S4 Water Sales and Service will perform the work.
The commission also approved the final pay of $19,804.42 to Conn Hurst LLC, for the Sunset Heights Water System improvements, and it approved acceptance of the project for perpetual maintenance by the WMU Commission. The total project cost was $471,860.81. The total budgeted amount for completion was $524,000.
— A¿pay request of $133,873.23 to Conn Hurst for the Forest Park Sanitary Sewer improvements was also approved, representing payment for work done through July 31.
The next WMU Commission meeting will be Thursday, Sept. 1.

Contact Katie Perkowski at kperkowski@winchestersun.com or follow her on Twitter @TheSunKatie.