Curbside recycling pickup will return to Jacksonville on April 4, exactly six months after the city suspended the service to focus on missed garbage and yard waste collections.
Mayor Lenny Curry made the announcement via tweet on Tuesday and attributed the delay to labor shortages affecting "cities throughout the nation."
I'm pleased to announce that curbside recycling will return throughout the @CityofJax on Monday, April 4th. I'm grateful to our citizens for their patience during these challenging and unprecedented times as we've faced issues happening in cities throughout the nation
— Lenny Curry (@lennycurry) February 15, 2022
In a news release, Curry said the city will use the intervening time to finalize contracts with its three private waste haulers to address issues that led to driver shortages and missed collections in the first place.
When Jacksonville decided to halt recycling in October, waste haulers had been missing over 4,000 collections weekly the previous month, with yard waste making up the majority of failed pickups.
That number improved almost immediately after the suspension of recycling, now that haulers could focus on yard waste and garbage.
Between Jan. 31 and Feb. 7, the city missed under 600 collections, with a little over 300 being yard waste.
Curry called the reduction in missed collections "notable progress" and said as a result the city was "prepared to resume services."
That number is still significantly higher than missed collections before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Jacksonville City Council has established a special committee on solid waste to solve the city's waste management issues in comparison to other large Florida metros.
The committee's first meeting is set for Thursday morning.
In nearby Clay County, the board of commissioners also suspended recycling back in August. Similar to the situation in Duval, Clay County officials cited the growing number of missed garbage and yard waste collections as the reason to end recycling services to address the more serious issue facing residents.
Clay County contracts with Waste Management and says the waste hauler needs 40 licensed drivers in order to fully staff routes. As of the county's last public update, they were about 14 drivers short, with the next report to the board due on Wednesday.
