City to phase in poly carts
The City will begin replacing community dumpsters with poly carts to clear up a “billing headache” that costs the city money and provides uneven access to trash disposal for some residents.
The City Council approved the contract with Waste Connections to replace the dumpsters shared by several households with individual trash cans, and the poly carts have arrived at the public works yard. Still, no date has been set to distribute them, said Interim City Administrator Arpegea Pagsuberon.
Waste Connections will continue to pick up trash in the alleys but are waiting for city crews to clear the alleys of branches and debris to give the trucks better access, she said.
The new trash receptacles provide more guaranteed disposal space – 90 gallons versus an average of 73 gallons per household for the shared dumpsters, said city Secretary Tammy Hourigan.
The larger space does come with a bigger price tag: Residents now pay the City an average of $18.97 a month for dumpster space, compared to $23 a month for one poly cart. Residents who want a second dumpster will be charged $37 a month for two poly carts, Hourigan said.
The decision to switch to individual trash receptacles was the result of abuse of the dumpster system, a complicated billing system and Waste Connections’ preference for the smaller bins, Hourigan said.
Because dumpsters are sometimes shared by different numbers of houses, the City had to calculate the individual household costs of each dumpster, she said.
And then there were the dumpsters that were being used but not assigned to any households.
“Right now the city is paying for dumpsters that we are getting charged for by Waste Connections that no one is paying for out in the city,” she said. An audit of Olney households showed that 27 residences were receiving trash service that they were not paying for, she said.
“If we’ve got somebody who is not paying for trash service and we are turning around and paying Waste Connections for that service, we are losing money,” she said. “The main thing with the poly carts is that it’s going to streamline everything, it’s going to make it easier for us to know what people are paying for and what people have, and it’s going to enable everybody that pays for trash service to have trash service.”
The City has not yet set a date for Waste Connections to distribute the poly carts, but it will likely occur on a street-by-street or neighborhood bases in the coming months, Pagsuberon said.
“It’s going to take time and we are going to notify each street when the poly carts are going to be delivered,” she said.
Waste Connections will also change out the current side-loading commercial dumpsters at Olney businesses for front-loading commercial dumpsters to accommodate Waste Connections’ new trucks, Hourigan said.