CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) — The Clearwater City Council has considered refunding residents who were charged for recycling that had been sent to the landfill for months.

The city began investigating the matter after residents took to the Nextdoor app to express concerns.

The investigation found that recycled items were being dumped at the Pinellas County Solid Waste Disposal Complex with all other trash instead.

Last month, city officials admitted that recycling had stopped for about six months.

“Trust is something that’s hard to restore once you lose it. All we can do at this point is tell residents, here’s where we currently are, here’s what we’ve unfolded and here’s what we plan to do in the future,” said Clearwater Communications Director Joelle Castelli.

News Channel 8 learned recycling issues started years ago.

“In 2019 we started having issues with the commodities,” said Castelli. “It came to light in the last 6 months before January first, that we hadn’t been recycling anything. Prior to that it looks like processing was down significantly, but we were still recycling about a third.”

During a work session on Monday, council members discussed issuing refunds for recycling service charges from July through December.

“If you took all of our recycling customers and refunded them the 6 months for $3.38 per home, it’s approximately $1.1 million dollars,” Castelli said.

City Council members will further discuss a potential refund during Thursday night’s meeting.