CAPE MAY – The city is moving to limit the amount of recycling material it will pick up from homes and businesses at curbside.

An ordinance introduced at the City Council’s March 18 meeting puts a limit of 192 gallons on single-family and dual-family homes; individual containers cannot exceed 96 gallons. All containers must have lids, and cardboard not put into a container must be tied, bundled or otherwise secured.

Mixed use or commercial properties will have limits depending on the nature and size of the property. No city pickup will exceed six containers regardless of the property’s use.

Material to be recycled beyond the ordinance’s limits must be dealt with by a private hauler.

The ordinance was amended at the meeting before being formally introduced. Added was the granting of authority to the city manager to adjust, if need be, the limits on pickups at the Washington Street Mall and language to make formal the current practice of allowing property owners to transport their excess recycling themselves to the city’s recycling facility during defined hours.

Cape May has spent the last seven months attempting to fashion a recycling ordinance. In September 2024 City Manager Paul Dietrich said that the point of any change in ordinance and practice was “to find the line where the city’s obligations end and where a commercial business needs to arrange for its own pickup.”

Since then document drafts have been tabled, discussion has been lively, and no ordinance has yet made it to the vote-to-adopt point. City Solicitor Christopher Gillin-Schwartz said at the March 18 meeting that a small group was formed to work on a new draft.

Joking that the goal of the group was to make everyone unhappy, Gillin-Schwartz said the ordinance being introduced at that meeting represents “an attempt to do what we can reasonably do.”

Mayor Zach Mullock set Nov. 1 as a point when the city should look back at the summer recycling pickup experience and “see what worked and what didn’t work.”

No adoption schedule was attached to the ordinance, but custom would likely have it come up for a public hearing and potential vote to adopt at the April 15 council meeting.

Contact the reporter, Vince Conti, at vconti@cmcherald.com.