DAPHNE, Ala. — Daphne Mayor Fred Small used his bi-monthly Coffee with the Mayor meeting with citizens to issue a call for residents to increase their recycling efforts.

Asked about the city’s loss-making recycling program, he said the answer to the problem was to increase the tonnage of recycled material the city collects. That would require people to change the way they treated their trash, he told a gathering of around 40 people meeting at City Hall.

“We have to change a few habits,” Small said. “We need you to recycled more.

“If we get the tonnage up it will offset the cost. We have to get the tonnage.”

The mayor told attendees that suggestions he had received for funding the recycling program included making a charge for a second garbage can, or use of the the landfill. This would encourage recycling because “recycling is free,” he said, however, he stressed these were merely suggestions that had been put forward during discussions on the matter.

Small said efforts his own family had made, meant that his home was now producing more recycled material than garbage, but warned that progress was slow in the community at large.

“I don’t think we will recycle until we are made to recycle.” he said. “I think we throw too much away. I think we are lazy.”