Recycling bins in state budget?

TOWN OF WRIGHTSTOWN - One item in the state budget right now is $46,000 to pay for recycling bins for the Town of Wrightstown.

The town is in southern Brown County and has about 2,000 residents.
Homeowners in other municipalities often pay for recycling bins out of their own pockets.

Many of the 800 households in the town of Wrightstown have two recycling bins: one for paper and one for other recyclable materials. But the town plans to change to single stream recycling, where all recyclables go into one large bin, the size of a standard garbage can.

The new bins could be paid for by the state, with a price tag of $46,000.

"He went after it, for the towns," town chairman Bill Verbeten said of State Rep. Ted Zigmunt, D-Francis Creek. "It was pretty nice that he's working for the small communities."

Verbeten says  Zigmunt asked the town what it needed, and the town said recycle bins.

"Whatever we can get to help out and make things a little bit easier on the taxpayer, that's what we're looking for," said Verbeten.

FOX 11 asked Zigmunt if the recycling bins were a good use of state funds given the budget deficit. Zigmunt replied, "I don't think it's a bad use. It goes toward recycling, and my job is to try to help my district and the communities in my district out in these times and if the money was there it was up to (the state Joint Finance Committee) to decide if that money was available and if it was being put to good use."

But one member of the Joint Finance Committee says new recycle bins for one town is not a good use of state money.

"I think it stinks," Rep. Phil Montgomery, R-Ashwaubenon, said. "It's shenanigans. If the village of Wrightstown needs a road, that benefits everyone, benefits the state, benefits commerce, it helps create jobs. I don't get this kind of decision and budget where they're telling folks that they're cutting to the bone."

Bob Mancuski, who lives in Wrightstown, says it doesn't really matter who pays for the new bins, the money is going to come out of his pocket one way or another.

"Somebody's gotta pay for them," he said. "If it comes out of the taxes or the individual household pays for them, someplace along the line, the money's got to come (from) someplace," said Mancuski.

The town does plan on getting the new bins. The question is if the money will come from residents' personal budgets or the state budget.

The provision for recycle bins still has a long way to go if and when it happens.
The budget still has to go through both houses of the legislature and be signed by the governor before it becomes law.