Powder Springs Should Consider Private Trash Pick-Up
Dear Readers:
Last fall the city considered privatizing trash collections.
After a thorough study and even bidding out the service, it looked like we would save money. We were ready to go though with this when suddenly a pile of money showed up and the issue just disappeared. Therefore the trash and garbage service continues to be a city service.
You can look all of this up by going to "Where did $500,000 in sanitation funds come from".
The City offers Cobb County residents who live in the water boundary, trash service. However, those residents can have private service if they wish.
City residents cannot have any service other than the City. In comes a private hauling service and begins sending flyers to those customers offering
to pick up trash plus recyclables for $10.00 per month.
Those customers quit the city in droves during May. That left the City with 643 customers in the county. The private hauler did tell those Cobb citizens that the city would no longer be picking up their trash which was not true. However, the company said that they would cease this kind of statement. Still, it must have brought some attention to the lower price.
The questions now are:
-Will the remaining 643 customers leave in order to save about $100 per year plus have recyclables but might not have the twice per year large trash clean-up service that the city offers. It depends what $100 is worth to them and what the city service is worth.
-The next question is: Should the city once again look at the privatization program that was offered us last Fall? If not, why not?
If the 643 customers all leave, the city will lose about $140,000 per year. I stand to be corrected on this and perhaps the City Manager could send a note explaining the entire issue as stated above.
But if true, that amount of money would be 10% of the projected revenues for trash pick-up. Can the City afford to lose this much? What kind of negative impact will this have on the sanitation service?
Thanks for reading,
Next time I will revisit the DAPS issue.
Ra Barr
10:04 am on Tuesday, June 12, 2012
A larger question: If the private company can do the job for $10 per month and presumably make a profit, why can't the city?
Vorant1
12:21 am on Wednesday, June 13, 2012
@ Ra Barr,
This is a specialize operation taking the recyclable items and separating them at a specialized facility. I have a very similar service and we have to rinse all empty containers before going into the recycle bin. Furthermore its not necessary to bag those item for recycling it all goes into the bin, paper, plastic, glass, aluminum etc. Our service even allows up to about 6 or so bags of yard clippings/leaves. The city would never be able to give this level of service at this price