In a news release issued early Saturday evening, the city of Bloomington has announced that curbside recycling service will resume on Monday, Oct. 4.
Last week the recycling service was cancelled, because not enough sanitation workers were available to work. Several workers had tested positive for the COVID-19 pandemic virus.
For residents whose recycling efforts exceed the size of the cart in any one week, for the coming week, they can set out additional items in other containers. The news release cautions, “Recycling placed in plastic bags will not be collected.”
Last week, the news release announcing the cancellation of recycling pickup did not come until Sunday afternoon.
The word did not get out to every resident. A uReport from Thursday noted: “Although my trash was taken my recycling was left Tuesday morning. There was no indication or notice sticker as to why.”
Regular trash pickup was not affected.
Saturday’s announcement of the resumption of service came a day earlier than expected. At Friday’s news conference of local leaders on pandemic response, Bloomington’s mayor, John Hamilton, said he thought the decision would probably be made on Sunday.
On Friday, Hamilton called the cancellation of recycling curbside service for that week ”the first significant service reduction that we’ve had to implement” in the 18 months of the pandemic.
Hamilton noted on Friday that the six new positive COVID-19 tests among city employees for that week brought September’s total to 18, which is the highest of any month in 2021. The only higher month for the duration of the pandemic so far was December of 2020 with 20 cases, Hamilton said.