QUINCY - Three Quincy residents raised concerns about the city's mandatory recycling program.

Residents questioned whether exceptions could be made, the amount the city received from the program and whether apartments were forced to participate. The issues came up during a recent city council meeting.

Kelley Hobbes pointed out she already recycles, so the curb side recycling won't save her money. The 96-gallon container picked up once every two weeks won't accommodate the amount of cardboard her family uses.

"I haul my cardboard to the recycling center back here," she said. "It's only about four blocks away, so my container size will probably not be changing. I will not be saving any money. In fact, this will be costing our household more money ... Not only will I be paying for it, but I also get to continue going to the recycling center."

Her bigger issue was the lack of ability to get an exemption from the requirement, she said. Hobbes' grandparents aren't able to deal with the recycling container.

"My grandmother is in stage six of Alzheimer's. She barely knows who I am. She doesn't even know who her husband is sometimes, but she is also very fanatic about making sure the cans are emptied in the house," Hobbes said. "You put one paper in there, she runs it out to the garbage."

She pointed out it would be impossible to tell her grandmother not to put the wrong kind of trash in the recycling container.

"If I have a garbage can here and a recycling bin there, you know what I'm seeing? I'm seeing that I'm going to be in there digging garbage out of the recycling bin," she said.

The only other option is to put the bin in the garage, making Hobbes' grandparents pay for recycling they can't use, she said.

Mayor Jim Hemberry responded the city staff couldn't offer exceptions, but the city council will review requests. The requests can be sent in as a letter and reviewed by a council committee.

Gene Lillquist, a Quincy resident, criticized the lack of information about the program, saying the city didn't inform the residents well enough before the mandatory recycling went into place.

"There should have been information sent out to the members of the community. There were a lot of people that were not aware of this until we got hit with it," he said.

He asked whether apartments and trailers were being incorporated into the program.

"If they have big Dumpsters are these people going to be required to recycle?" he asked. "If they're not then why are you enforcing this on me."

The cost is minor to Lillquist, he said. He recycled for years, but it didn't cost him anything to recycle.

"I took a quick walk around town in my section of town and talked to senior people, they're not even aware that they have a senior discount," he said.

Councilmember Scott Lybbert said the city and vendor had a misunderstanding, and the recycling bins were delivered before more information could be given to people about the program.

"We had plans to go weeks ahead in the newspapers, mailers to everybody ... and they kind of jumped the gun and got garbage cans out faster than (we expected,)" he said.

The city plans to address the issue of recycling at apartments as well, Lybbert said.

Former Councilmember Keith Anstine said he wanted to see more public meetings on recycling, pointing out the council looked at optional and mandatory curb side recycling plans.

"I would have liked to have seen more public meetings," he said. "A lot of the seniors I talked to, some of them can't even move the containers. They left them out in the street, and (the city) picks up (garbage) in the alley, and I'm sitting there going, 'Why would they do that? How are they supposed to drag those around?'"

Lybbert said the councilmembers were surprised the cans were placed in front of the houses as well.

Anstine questioned how much money the city was getting from the program. He said the percentage seemed to vary between 1 percent and 200 percent depending on the line item.

"For example there's a distance charge, and I'm not sure what that is, 10 to 50 feet (CDSI charges the city) $3 a month and the city charges $3.50. That's understandable," he said. "I see variations in the mark up, I can't understand the formula used."

Hemberry said the city didn't use a formula to determine how much additional money the city would charge above what CDSI charged them.

"We don't know how many people are going to be able to go down from one sized cart to another," he said. "So trying to do a forecast for revenue is pretty difficult. So we're going to monitor it for six months just to see how our rates work out."

Lybbert said the recycling program is new for the city staff and the councilmembers, and they are still fixing issues. He defended the program, saying he supported less government.

"I was pretty opposed to mandatory (recycling,)" he said. "I heard one statement that was made that I thought was pretty interesting ... It's mandatory that we have a garbage can. I think that everybody would understand why ... we don't want (the garbage) in the backyard ... We're being responsible to make sure we require a garbage can. The only difference that we did is that we chose to be responsible and not put a stream of that in the landfill that could be reused."

Lybbert pointed out the city made it the same price if people went to a smaller garbage can with the recycling.