Curbside recycling coming to county, Langley

Published 1:30 am Friday, May 15, 2026

Whidbey residents in Langley or unincorporated parts of the island who receive curbside garbage pickup will also receive curbside recycling collection, likely within the next four to six months.

In a 2-1 vote Tuesday, Island County commissioners adopted an ordinance that provides the recycling pickup bundled together with solid waste collection. In other words, customers must have — and pay for — both services.

Andrew Riggs, site manager for Island Disposal, told the commissioners during the regular meeting Tuesday that the change will likely cost customers an extra $6.50 a month, although the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission will have the final say.

Customers may be able to offset the added cost by downsizing to a smaller trash can. Riggs expects a 30% reduction in the waste stream as well as a “massive” carbon offset as recycling reduces the amount in greenhouse gases that would otherwise be produced in manufacturing new raw materials.

Riggs and the commissioners agreed that there’s overwhelming support in the community for the roadside recycling pickup service. He said Island Disposal sent out a survey to 4,200 on the island and more than half responded. Of those, 78% of people indicated they have a high level of interest in roadside recycling while 94% have some level of interest.

The recycling program won’t include glass, a fact which Commissioner Melanie Bacon bemoaned. Riggs explained glass can break and contaminate other materials in a co-mingled program. People can still bring glass to a recycling center on the island.

According to Riggs, Island Disposal holds the “Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity” for garbage collection and residential recycling services on Whidbey Island, excluding the City of Oak Harbor. The certificate is issued by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission and allows Island Disposal to operate under a WUTC-regulated tariff.

Resident Peggy Shekem spoke against the ordinance, saying that she and many others are older adults with long driveways who have trouble wheeling the garbage can to the roadside. She doesn’t want to deal with another can and enjoys bringing her recyclables to the center herself.

Bacon said the convenience of recycling was an important point as many people have very busy lives and may not have the time to sort, clean and haul recycling themselves. She spokeabout how recycling materials pile up at her house and she asks her husband to bring them in.

“I have every bit of confidence it does not end up in the recycling thing,” she said. “He puts it in his car, he takes it away, but I don’t think it’s going to recycling. I think it’s going to the dump and put in the dump. And I think that’s not unusual.”

Bacon and Janet St. Clair, both Democrats, voted in favor of the ordinance, while Commissioner Jill Johnson, a Republican, voted against it.

St. Clair said she appreciated both the reduction in the waste stream and the carbon offset.

Johnson said she was in favor or curbside recycling and had planned to vote for it, but at the last minute realized she didn’t understand how the program would affect the department’s budget. She pointed out that more recycling in the community — which is estimated to increase by as much as 2,400 tons annually — would result in less solid waste, which, in turn, means less tipping fees the county would collect at the solid waste transfer station.

James Sylvester, assistant director of Island County Public Works, said he did a rough estimate and felt that the savings from trucking the solid waste off island would offset the decrease in tipping fees — which the county collects based on weight.

Yet Johnson said wasn’t comfortable enough with the financial numbers to vote for the ordinance.

“I want to be really clear though about the fact that I think recycling’s important,” she said. “I think it’s valuable. I’m going to be highly frustrated if this is interpreted as that Republican didn’t like recycling, right? If that is the community messaging, I think that this is willfully misinformed.”