About 30 people attended a meeting Thursday at St. Joseph Landing where Parkersburg’s trash service, and the possibility of privatizing it, were discussed. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — The City of Parkersburg is seeking requests for proposals for a subscription-based recycling service separate from the privatized sanitation service for which the administration is negotiating a contract.

Under such a model, “those customers who choose to recycle in a curbside manner pay for it,” Mayor Tom Joyce said Friday.

According to a request for proposals advertised in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel from Nov. 12-19 and posted on the city’s website, “The City intends to offer residents the option to participate in a curbside recycling program separate from solid waste collection services.

“Approximately 25% of City residential customers were estimated to participate in municipal curbside recycling prior to the pause in service in May, 2025,” it says.

Recycling was included in the request for proposals the city issued in August for private companies to potentially take over municipal sanitation service. It was included in the starting per-residence charges in bids by Rumpke ($19.76 per month with bi-weekly recycling, $22.50 with weekly) and Waste Management ($22 a month).

When Parkersburg City Council considers whether to approve a multi-year contract with a sanitation provider, thereby removing residential trash and recycling pickup as a city service, Joyce said he wants to provide them “with options for long-term solutions.

“I do feel that it (recycling) should be a service, if you use it, you should pay for it,” he said.

The city has never charged specifically for recycling, Joyce said; it’s always been included with the monthly sanitation fee.

“I’m not going to say it was free, but it was unpriced,” he said.

The city suspended its curbside recycling pickup earlier this year citing staffing issues caused by vacancies and increased call-offs.

“That has not really improved,” Joyce said. “If anything, that’s probably gotten a little bit worse.”

The city is negotiating with one of the bidders for the sanitation service on a contract to bring before council. Joyce said earlier this month the contract would likely be presented to council sometime in December. But with the deadline for subscription recycling proposals set for Dec. 18, it seems unlikely that would happen until after the new year.

The city would not pay for universal curbside recycling if a subscription option is available. The bid from Waste Management designates $4.35 of the monthly unit charge for recycling. Finance Director Eric Jiles noted the city can accept or reject any portion of the proposal.

The Rumpke bid is a lump sum and does not break down the charge for recycling.

“They didn’t bid a recycling price,” Jiles said.

The request for recycling bids was questioned by Parkersburg resident Brian Hayden during a community meeting Thursday at St. Joseph Landing to discuss potential sanitation options. He and others in attendance asked what the city would do with its recycling facility off 24th Street.

Joyce said nothing has been determined on that front.

The separate recycling bid and the future of the city’s facility were among many questions residents had at Thursday’s meeting, which was organized by Hayden, Councilwoman Wendy Tuck and others.

Some residents argued the city needs to offer more money to sanitation workers and prospective employees to address the manpower issues.

“All we need is to pay the staff the right amount of money,” Russ Bowers said. “We shouldn’t be doing this. Our citizens will suffer.”

Jeff Fox, a former city councilman, said by his calculations the city has enough money to give medium equipment operators with commercial driver’s licenses and slingers who put trash bags in the trucks raises to $22 and $15 an hour respectively and still have nearly $265,000 left over.

Jiles, who had not reviewed Fox’s numbers, questioned that total on Friday. And he emphatically denied Fox’s claim that a portion of the $4-a-month increase to the sanitation fee was going to fund raises for medium equipment operators in other departments.

“Not all that $4 is going into sanitation,” Fox said, adding it’s hard to find where all the money is going.

Jiles said money collected in the sanitation enterprise fund stays there.

Moving it to another fund “is just simply not something the administration can do” without council’s authorization, which has not been given, he said.

During the budget process, some officials said they could not increase the pay of medium equipment operators in sanitation more than people with the same title and responsibilities in other departments. While they were all eventually approved by council for a $2-an-hour raise, the money for the increase in other departments comes from the general fund, not sanitation, Jiles said.

Hayden during the meeting pointed out that Waste Management and Rumpke’s bids were for one trash can (96 gallons for Waste Management, 95 for Rumpke) and one recycling container, every two weeks. Pickups of bulky items would be limited, and Waste Management would charge $3 per additional bag of solid waste. There are few limits on the amount of refuse the city’s sanitation service has picked up over the years.

Parkersburg resident Alisa Prince said based on her experience owning properties in other areas served by both companies, she preferred Rumpke if the city did not keep its own service.

Parkersburg resident Eric Engle said he is wary of a commercial hauler because they are regulated by the West Virginia Public Service Commission, which he called a “less-than-useless … industry-captured regulatory agency” that would not be responsive to consumer concerns.

One person pointed out that Rumpke offered $967,500 to purchase some of the city’s sanitation equipment, while Waste Management did not make a bid. Jiles said earlier this month that city officials determined the sale of any equipment would have to be done through a council-approved auction.

Some residents are circulating a petition to get council to host a public hearing on the sanitation issue.

“They want to demand that we have an open, real hearing, where we get to ask real questions,” Hayden said.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.