Houston's $7.6 million curbside expansion plans to kick-off this July

WASHINGTON (Scrap Monster) : The Houston city has announced major expansion of its single-stream residential curbside collection program by adding more households.

The Houston city plans to spend around $7.6 million for the expansion drive which is estimated to newly add nearly 100,000 households to its curbside collection program. The program will add 35,000 households to the program by July this year. Another 70,000 homes will be added to the program by October. The expansion program would bring 200,000 out of the estimated 380,000 households in the Houston city, which translates to less than 60% participation rates.

The city presently collects around 2,100 tons of recyclables per month. With the proposed expansion in place, the quantity of recyclables collected is expected to double.

According to Houston’s solid waste department, the city will be in charge of collecting the recyclables while the processing of it will be the liable responsibility of Waste Management Inc.

The City announced the expansion program to cost around $7.6 million. The cost of the expansion program would be covered by the revenue generated out of sale of recyclables. The City has also proposed several cost-cutting measures to boost the revenue from the curbside collection activities.