By Shereen Siewert | Wausau Pilot & Review

Less frequent garbage pickup, a push to compost household food scraps and new survey results all come before Wausau’s sustainability committee Thursday as members shape a five-year climate plan.

The Sustainability, Energy and Environment Committee will review a draft plan that lists every-other-week garbage collection, paired with weekly recycling and composting, among possible waste strategies. Members will also hear a pitch from Hsu Growing Supply, which wants the city’s help signing more households up for the company’s food-scrap pickup service. They’ll get the first results of community and business sustainability surveys and consider a pollinator garden and public art project at the Marathon County Historical Society’s archive center.

Hsu’s presentation sums up the central challenge of food-scrap collection in two lines: “The scraps are free. The service isn’t.”

The committee hopes the Wausau City Council will adopt the finished plan, carried in draft pages as the City of Wausau Climate and Resiliency Blueprint 2027-2032, by April 1, 2027.

Wausau now collects garbage weekly and recycling every other week. The every-other-week idea appears as a single line in the draft’s waste-reduction strategy, which remains in outline form; the plan’s overall emissions reduction targets still read “X%” and “XX%.”

Under Hsu’s proposal, the company would keep running collection and composting while the city helps residents learn the option exists. According to the presentation, Hsu has composted for more than 30 years and received a 2024 Recycling Excellence Award from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The presentation suggests three starting points: co-branded food waste education, a defined and measurable residential pilot, and folding food waste diversion into the city’s sustainability plan while identifying funding.

Residents can already sign up for Hsu’s HERO program, short for Hsu Earth & Resource Organics, at $150, $250 or $350 a year depending on the tier, with weekly pickup from April through November and every-other-week service in winter. The company’s own figures show fuel and driver costs on the current route average $24.13 per customer each week, or roughly $1,250 a year, more than three times the price of the most expensive tier. The presentation notes those figures reflect the existing route rather than a citywide forecast, and says compost sales help offset expenses but cannot fund the whole collection service.

Citing DNR data, the presentation says food waste is the largest single category of trash in Wisconsin landfills, making up about 20% of the total. Wisconsin residents sent an average of 294 pounds of food waste and scraps to landfills in 2020, according to the presentation, and the state aims to cut per-capita landfilled food waste in half by 2030.

Members on Thursday are also set to review and approve the plan’s section covering fleet and waste data for city operations.

That draft section says the city owns no electric vehicles, and 12 of the city’s 91 light-duty vehicles are hybrids. Supporting EV charging at the Department of Public Works facility at 400 Myron St. would require significant electrical upgrades that, according to the draft, do not make financial sense at a site nearing end of life. The draft says EV infrastructure must be considered when a new public works facility is built. Electric buses also remain out of reach for now, citing technological and operational limits; Metro Ride recently bought 10 new buses and four paratransit vans.

The waste section is thinner. Harter’s Fox Valley Disposal, the city’s garbage hauler, cannot currently provide waste data specific to city operations, according to the draft, which instead lists steps the public works department has taken: burning used motor oil in certified waste-oil furnaces, recycling antifreeze and switching from disposable paper hand cloths to washable fabric towels, a change the draft credits with cutting paper waste by about 80%.

Both the plan’s summary and the list of strategies point to one recurring need: a dedicated sustainability staff member. The summary says hiring someone to lead data collection, analysis and long-term tracking would significantly advance the city’s benchmarking. The committee’s draft November update to the City Council lists the benefits and cost savings of such a position among emerging themes, along with composting and food diversion.

Survey results will be distributed at the meeting, with a summary and discussion to follow. The community and business surveys were open Sept. 1 through Oct. 31.

The pollinator garden would sit along the northeastern edge of the John and Carolyn Sonnentag Archive Center, 1009 N. Third St., next to the rail line. A draft agreement between the historical society and the committee calls for a roughly 15-by-40-foot native shade garden with engraved botanical markers, wood insect shelters and mosaic pollinator watering stations. Students and community members would help create the artwork.

The project, led by committee member Lauren Leitner, carries an estimated $3,500 budget. The committee would secure at least 70% through grants and sponsorships, with the historical society covering at least 30%. Plans call for a ceremonial groundbreaking during Earth Week in April and a community planting day in late May, pending approval from the historical society’s executive committee in December and full board in January.

The committee will also consider approving the application and timeline for the 2027 Wausau Sustainability Award, which members agreed earlier this year to tie to Earth Week. Other Earth Week ideas in the packet include a Marathon County Landfill tour, a Hsu composting demonstration and tour, tree planting and a Good News Project e-cycle event.

The meeting begins at 5 p.m. Thursday in the Maple Room at Wausau City Hall, 407 Grant St., with public comment on agenda items at the start.

Each of the plan’s strategies is slated to eventually spell out specific initiatives, lead departments, timelines and emission reduction estimates. For now, the waste section’s ideas, every-other-week garbage pickup included, remain possibilities, and the full blueprint still has to clear the Wausau City Council next spring.

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