About an hour into Tuesday’s City Council meeting, all 15 aldermen stood up and applauded. They were clapping for Bill Folstrom, the Public Works Department’s superintendent of the streets, solid waste and bridges division, who had devoted months to developing the city’s new waste collection system.

The City Council approved Racine’s new semi-automated waste collection system at Tuesday night’s meeting by a unanimous vote. The plan, which will likely go into effect in July 2017, will add some automation and safety for workers to the collection system without disrupting the process for citizens and will cost $3.85 million.

“I don’t know what the city would do without you,” Sixth District Alderman Sandy Weidner told Folstrom. “We are so lucky to have you.”