A few noticeable changes are in store for the trash and recycling services provided to residents of Wright City.The Wright City Board of Aldermen in February approved changes to its waste hauling agreement with Meridian Waste Acquisitions, which will go into effect April 1. This is the second year Meridian has provided local waste hauling services after purchasing the previous provider, Wilson Waste Systems.On top of new waste pickup days and a slight increase to service charges, recycling customers will be asked to reorganize how they dispose of recycled products.The new trash pickup day will be Friday each week throughout the city, while recycling will be picked up on Wednesdays, said City Administrator Jim Schuchmann.Trash collection charges for Wright City homeowners will go up slightly from the previous rate, officials said. Part of the cost increase will pay for customers to receive an additional recycling bin (more on that below).The board of aldermen also agreed to another 3.5 percent rate increase in 2020.Another change in the contract is that city staff will no longer provide yard waste pickup. Any resident who wants yard waste removed must contract the service with Meridian directly, at a cost of $10 per month.Change to recyclingThose who take advantage of Meridian’s recycling service will see the biggest change: Meridian will no longer collect “single stream” recycling.Single stream is the recycling process that allows all recyclable materials to be placed in the same container and then sorted through later at a specialized facility.Instead, Meridian is transitioning to a “dual stream” process, in which customers are asked to organize their recyclables into two different bins. Those bins are then picked up and sorted on separate weeks.The type of recycling picked up each Wednesday will alternate. Paper and cardboard products will be collected one week, then plastic and metal the next week.“Meridian will be delivering a second recycling tote to households in late March and will be putting out educational literature on how to handle the new recycling,” Schuchmann said.Derrick Standley, a manager with Meridian Waste, said part of that education will include certain types of material the company does not want in its recycling stream, including certain types of plastic.Standley explained that single stream is being discontinued because it puts too much material in the recycling stream that isn’t being reused. That material ends up being thrown out and causing pollution, Standley said. Because of this, China, the world’s largest importer of recycled material, drastically restricted its imports in 2018.Standley added that much of what was in the recycling stream ended up polluting the rivers of southeast Asia.“This is where all of the trash that’s in the (Pacific) Ocean has come from. They would try and process it, it would wash down the rivers and out into the ocean,” Standley told the Wright City Board of Aldermen in February.In answer to the current situation, Standley said more recycling mills are being built in America. But those mills want a clean stream of material, which he said is easier to accomplish with dual stream.Recycling