HANNIBAL, MO -- Hannibal residents will decide the fate of its recycling program at the voting booth in April.
Earlier this week, the city council agreed to place an issue on the ballot which would asses each household a dollar recycling fee each month for three years.
If approved, generated funds would go to the Northeast Missouri Sheltered Workshop on Clinic Road, which runs the city's recycling program.
Right now the city of Hannibal pays the Northeast Sheltered Workshop five hundred fifty dollars a month to gather, sort and pack all the city's recyclables.
Up until now, that was enough to help keep the service going.
But as the economy started to slow, so did the market for recycled cardboard, plastic and paper....and now the workshop is losing money.
To put it in perspective as late as last spring workshop was getting 80 to 90 dollars a ton for cardboard.
Now the price is ten dollars a ton...making it impossible for the workshop to make ends meet.
Officials say residents need to decide if they want to keep or lose the service.
John Yancey, Volunteer Interim Manager for the Northeast Missouri Sheltered Workshop said, "If we want to continue in the recycling business, whether we do it or someone else does it, it has to be supported by the people."
If approved, the one dollar recycling fee would be included on monthly Board of Public works bills.
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