Municipal leaders in Casper, Wyo. have reversed course and decided to renew their electronics recycling program, after hearing from angry constituents opposed to landfilling them.
The Casper Star Tribune reports Casper City Council members agreed at a recent work session to sign a contract with ERI, which submitted a bid to process e-scrap at its Aurora, Colo. location.
The Council in February voted to reject the five-year contract and begin landfilling electronics, despite a city ban on doing so.
During the March 14 work session, the Council changed its mind and voted 7-2 to ask staff to prepare a new contract for approval, according to the Star Tribune. Some members of Council – and the city’s solid waste division manager – noted they’d been flooded with citizen calls and comments in favor of electronics recycling.
In the past, the city has contracted with MeTech Recycling for its program. In 2015, when MeTech raised its prices, the city eliminated CRTs from the recycling program, according to city documents.
Last year, the city contracted with a nonprofit group called NOWCAP Services, which processed 164,300 pounds of e-scrap from Casper, charging 15 cents a pound.
