Curbside recycling has almost returned to the city of Suffolk, but a local company is looking for a few more people to commit to paying $12 a month for curbside service.

TFC Recycling has almost reached its Earth Day deadline — April 22 — to get 3,000 households to sign up for recycling.

For a $12 fee each month, the Chesapeake-based company will provide participants with a recycling container similar to the trash containers the city provides most homes. Participants can dump a wide variety of materials into the cans, which then would be picked up twice a month on trash day.

“We still want people to sign up,” said Ed Farmer, vice president of business development at the company. “It’s probably going to take us three to four weeks to get billing information from everybody who signed up, and then we’ll see exactly how many people we have committed.”

About 1,900 people so far have said they will pay for the service, but Farmer expects that number to drop slightly when the company starts collecting billing information.

“We’ve got about 2,000 people that said, ‘OK, I’ll do it,’ but when we ask them for the money, are they still going to go through with it?”

Farmer encouraged people who have not yet decided on the program to go ahead and sign up.

“If they’re on the fence, get in now,” Farmer said. “We just want them to keep signing up.”

Farmer is convinced that once the program starts, more people will sign up as they see their neighbors participating in the program.

“Once we get it going, then more people are going to want that blue bin out there,” Farmer said. “But we really would appreciate it if they could sign up in the next week or so.”

To register online for curbside recycling, or for more information, visit www.tfcrecycling.com/suffolk. The company now also has a Facebook fan page.

After Earth Day, the company will evaluate the numbers and begin contacting those who expressed an interest in participating for their payment information.