WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — A new app aimed at helping residents recycle maybe coming to Wausau soon.
Tuesday night the Wausau city council approved a curbside recycling audit with local startup ERbin to look at the current state of recycling in Wausau. ERbin based out of Kronenwetter had developed an app that allows residents to scan UPC barcodes and see if the item can be recycled.
Wausau is hopeful that by taking the first step of conducting a curbside recycling audit will bring the app to the city. District 1 Alderman and Sustainability, Energy and Environment Committee representative Pat Peckham describes what the audit will do.
“We’re going to have city employees, ERbin employees, and Harter Refuse Hauling employees go out into the community on 5 different days. To check and see compliance of does the recycling bin contain things that should be in the recycling. And does the trashbin contain things that should be in the trash.”
Once the audit is finished the findings will be presented to the city to determine residents current recycling behaviors. One behavior that ERbin has noticed in prior audits is ‘wish-cycling’.
Peckham describes it as, “You think, maybe this shouldn’t go in the landfill so I’m going to throw it in the recycling and if it’s not recyclable they’ll be able to throw it away. Well, then somebody else at that plant has to go in there and pick it out. And so there’s a lot of things like that where we’d like to have it done right the first time.”
From the audit, the city is hopeful that ERbin can work with Wausau to create a database of items that can be recycled for residents to reference, according to Peckham.
“Get a basic database of what’s recyclable and what’s not. So that you can scan the UPC code on the product and it will tell you whether it’s recyclable or not in your community. And it may vary from community to community.”
Peckham says one of the other eventual goals is to send more items to recycling so the city can make more money as opposed to spending more money. “Direct more recyclables into that stream so that that can be supported. And probably less material into the waste and refuse stream which costs us money per ton.
“So we can reduce the amount of trash that’s going in the landfill we have to pay for and take more to recycle. Where they can actually make some money off of it, or at least have it pay for itself. Everybody is better off.”
The audit is being provided for free by ERbin to the city. It will occur sometime during the month of August. ERbin has also worked with the Village of Weston, who has seen a positive impact from the audit and residents using the app.
