Working with the Town of Patagonia, the Patagonia Recycling Task Force has arranged for curbside recycling services to be available by subscription in Patagonia and Eastern Santa Cruz County where clusters of homes make the service economically feasible.
The task force has been in discussions with Recyclops, whose business model should work for many households in the region. Rather than employing large trucks with automated collection apparatus, Recyclops has customers put their recyclables in transparent reusable plastic bags that allow the pickup drivers to monitor the bags’ contents to keep contamination to a minimum. Contamination is the reason Patagonia’s former recycling operation was largely unsuccessful.
Recyclops now provides its curbside recycling service to communities in a dozen states and is looking forward to offering the service to residents not only in Patagonia but in the Sonoita-Elgin area as well. The company has already established a Patagonia page on its website that provides details on how the operation works and allows interested individuals and households to enroll. That page can be reached at https://recyclops.com/patagonia/
Recyclops has established a target date of mid-October to begin providing the service but the company requires a minimum of one hundred subscribers before it begins curbside pickup.
It also needs to recruit drivers with pickups or other suitable vehicles to collect the recyclables at the curb and take them to a central collection site. Information for drivers may be found on the company’s website through the Patagonia link above.
One of the features of the Recyclops program of particular interest to seasonal residents is that subscribers can stop and start service as they need it. Subscribers can pay monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually using a variety of payment methods.
At press time, Recyclops reported that nearly half the minimum number of subscribers had already signed up. Among the subscribers is Patagonia Town Manager Ron Robinson who encourages all town residents to give the service a try. “If we get lots of people participating, the town will benefit by saving landfill tipping fees and we’ll be helping to protect our environment,” Robinson said.