Wonder why your recycling fee is going up 7 percent next year? At the end of this month, St. Paul residents will start getting new, full-sized recycling carts, though city officials don’t want people to use them. Yet.

Starting Nov. 29, city officials will start a months-long process of distributing 78,000 recycling carts to the streets and alleys of St. Paul. But city officials warn they won’t get everything distributed until early January, and they don’t want people to start using them until Jan. 16.

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Ramsey County commissioner announces $31.8 million federal grant for second Amtrak train Public Works administrative programs manager Ellen Biales said the annual recycling fee for single-family homes in St. Paul will go from $54.36 to $58.20 next year. That extra $3.84 will go to pay off the carts, which cost the city $37.25 apiece.

City officials hope to have the carts paid off in five years, and, no, that doesn’t add up at four bucks a year. But the city was able to negotiate a lower contract with their vendor, Eureka Recycling, over the next five years, so a portion of the carts’ cost will be absorbed by cheaper fees elsewhere.

The city hopes the carts will last longer — perhaps 10 years — so the next time the city negotiates a contract, it won’t have to buy new ones.

The carts will be dropped wherever residents usually place their garbage cans: alleys or on the side of the road.

Recycling pickup days may change for some residents, and the city is attaching packets to the carts outlining when their new pickup days will be, Biales said. Carts will be delivered first to residents whose current pickup day is Monday, followed by those whose pickup day is Tuesday, and so on.

Minneapolis-based Eureka Recycling — the city’s nonprofit vendor for 15 years — beat out one local and two national for-profit vendors for the contract, including Minneapolis-based Tranquility Housing and national chains Waste Management and Republic Services.

Last year, 21,000 tons of recycling were collected from St. Paul residents. City officials expect that amount to increase 35 percent over the next five years.