Zachary residents soon will be able to dispose of their cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and other recyclables in larger collection carts — but not everybody is happy about the change, which will cost customers an extra $4.35 a month.

The new recycling containers will be offered as part of a five-year contract with Waste Management that the City Council approved on a 4-1 vote Aug. 12.

Residents’ monthly bills will increase from $22.87 to $27.22. The garbage rate of $18.44 will stay the same. The recycling fee will go from $4.43 to $8.78.

Donald Hains, Waste Management account manager, said the increase will help cover recycling processing costs, which have skyrocketed in the past decade, as well as investments in equipment such as high-tech collection trucks.

In exchange for the higher rate, residents will be able to replace their current 18-gallon recycling bins with 96-gallon carts — the same size as the containers used for garbage.

Zachary will be the first in the area to provide such a large recycling cart, Hains said. East Baton Rouge Parish and Baker both have 64-gallon containers for recycling and 96-gallon containers for trash.

Part of the reason Waste Management is shifting to the carts is because they can be collected by automated trucks. The company wants to phase out rear-load trucks and hand collection, which are still used for recycling pickup in Zachary.

“That is an archaic way of collecting recyclables and waste,” Hains said. He added that it has become tough to find employees wiling to do such a laborious, risky job.

Waste Management quit using rear loaders and moved to automated garbage collection in Zachary a few years ago, Hains said.

He believes the 96-gallon carts will be a hit in Zachary, where about 40% of residents recycle — much higher than the national average of 15%, he said.

Waste Management presented the city with an option for garbage service only, which would cost $21.60 — $3.16 more than the current garbage-only rate. In this scenario, the rate would go up because people would be throwing their recyclables into trash cans, filling up trucks faster and increasing trips to the landfill.

Most council members said they saw the value of the recycling program and were in favor of keeping it.

John LeBlanc, Ambre DeVirgilio, James Graves and Jennifer Landry all voted to renew the contract with Waste Management, which has picked up Zachary’s waste since the early 2000s. The contract was initially brought to the council last month and failed on a 2-2 tied vote.

LeBlanc, who opposed the contract then, changed his mind after talking to constituents. He came to see recycling service as similar to bulk waste pickup — which is handled through a separate contract with Waste Depot.

“Not everybody utilizes that, but we still all pay for it,” LeBlanc said. “It’s there as a service when you do need it.”

“I have to change my vote,” he added. “I’m going to support it.”

He hopes the larger containers will prove useful to residents.

“I get a lot of stuff from Amazon … and I feel bad when I have to put an Amazon box that was used just one time in my garbage can,” he said.

But not everyone shared LeBlanc’s feelings. A few residents in the audience objected to the idea of being charged more money for a service they don’t plan to use. They said they’re not interested in having a recycling bin as big as their trash can.

One resident, Victor Durand, circled back to Waste Management’s statistic about recycling program participation.

“We’re going to cater to 40% versus 60% of people?” Durand said. “I don’t want another big one. I don’t even recycle. I just put it all in the garbage, and they pick it up.”

The residents found a sympathetic ear in Councilwoman Brandy Westmoreland, the lone vote against the contract.

She said many people — herself included — do not recycle because they’re too busy for time-consuming prep work like flattening boxes and rinsing out containers.

“With the economy and the cost of everything, for me personally, I’d rather not pay for recycling at all,” Westmoreland said.

She also questioned why the city did not seek bids from other companies.

“That’s something we can look at down the line,” Mayor David McDavid responded, “but we’ve worked with Waste Management for many years.”