<B>Dallas Expands Residential Collection Program</B>

The city of Dallas launched an expanded residential recycling program Oct. 2 in hopes that the expansion will reduce the discarded material generated by city residents.

The expanded program will include mixed paper, chipboard, glass and aerosol cans. The new materials are added to the existing materials -- old newspaper, aluminum cans, steel or tin cans and plastic bottles.

The expanded program will be run by Community Waste Disposal, which was awarded a five-year contract by the city of Dallas to handle the collection, processing and marketing of the materials. The contract also has two one-year extensions. The program costs $16.7 million. The Dallas-based company began the program in February with the initial four materials, and added the other materials the first weekday of October in hopes that it would double the amount of material being collected.

According to reports, the city of Dallas has lagged behind many other cities in recycling. About 13 percent of the single-family homes in the city now take part. Currently, 7,656 tons of recyclables are collected each year -- roughly 3.2 percent of total residential garbage. The program will service roughly 230,000 single family accounts in the city, says Joey Zapata, the program's contract manager. He estimates the collection program covers around 500,000 people.

While Dallas has had a recyclables collection program in place since 1997, Zapata says the benefit to the arrangement with CWD is the knowledge they have about the business. "We wanted someone with the expertise to handle the material. We also wanted someone to undertake all the (market) risks, Zapata adds

."By adding mixed paper -- magazines, junk mail and office paper -- the city may double the volume of recyclables, says Zapata.