DAPHNE, Ala.—The City Council voted 7-0 in favor of an ordinance that will require all municipal buildings to participate in a recycling program beginning March 1.

The ordinance requires all municipal-building directors to create a recycling program for their department with input from the city’s solid-waste coordinator.

The effort should help the city “stay in compliance with the State of Alabama 25 percent diversion rate and exceed a short-term goal of 200 tons of recyclable materials per month,” the ordinance states.

Council President Cathy Barnette is working with Tracey Miller in the public works department on a recycling grant with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. The grant would fund up to $300,000, but the city is only asking for $175,000.

The grant will would go toward infrastructure, including a one-armed garbage collector for recycling. The recycling ordinance will help strengthen Daphne’s application for the grant. The grant application is due at the end of February. The grants will be awarded in June or July.

Barnette said the city has a good chance of getting the grant with the new ordinance in place.

“The recycling ordinance that we passed tonight goes along to support our package that will be submitted at the end of the week to hopefully bring in 100 percent of an allocation of $175,000,” Barnette said.