By ELIOT SILL

Staff writer

The city of Marion drew praise from the county commissioners at a meeting Friday for the city’s implementation of a curbside recycling program, set to begin in January.

“I’m tickled to death,” Commissioner Randy Dallke said. “I’m gonna make a prediction that the city of Marion people will enjoy it, after they get used to it.”

“Find out how simple it is,” Commissioner Dan Holub replied.

“Also we’re still making the invite for the city of Hillsboro to follow up suit whenever they get a chance to, if they can see fit to join the program to help completely involve Marion County as a recyclable county,” Dallke added.

Commissioners went on to commend City Administrator Roger Holter for finding a program that can be instituted with ease and won’t incur additional cost for the city, just a reallocation of resources.

But while Marion found an easy way to add weekly curbside recycling, Hillsboro continues the conversations it’s had for years among its city council and with Commission Chairman Roger Fleming, without much progress.

Hillsboro can’t exactly take a page out of Marion’s book, either, as Hillsboro only has once-a-week trash pickup for citizens.

“It’s the cost,” Mayor Delores Dalke said. “It would take us having extra runs, and we have not worked that out.”

Dalke said the city would love to have a plan “as soon as we can figure out how to do it.”

She also congratulated Marion on its program. The city of Peabody also has had curbside recycling for years, but residents pay extra for the program regardless of whether they participate. Florence does not have a curbside recycling program.

“We’ve kept trash rates pretty low in Hillsboro, how much would we have to raise, or will we have to raise rates in order to do curbside? And what’s the magic number that it’s going to work?” Dalke said. “Maybe we’re just not charging enough for trash, if we raised the rate high enough, we could afford to do it.”