St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman's attempt to bring about universal curbside recycling has stalled.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the city's recent attempt to find a contractor to process its recyclables drew no bidders. St. Petersburg is the only large city in Florida not to offer universal curbside recycling.
Kriseman is considering two proposals to do the job in-house. Both would require the city to buy six or seven new trucks at a cost of about $230,000 each and hire new drivers to operate them.
The first would delay the hiring of the extra drivers for about six months, but existing workers would be paid overtime and pickup would start sooner. The second would start the collection whenever the city hires the new drivers. Either way, residents would pay $3 a month for the service.
A private company still has to be found to process the materials.
Kriseman told the Times he hopes to see recycling bins in front of every home before summer is over. The city has some 76,000 households.