Jefferson Citians are talking trash.
The occasion is the effort by city officials to seek public input in advance of negotiating a new contract for solid waste services. The city's six-year contract with Allied Waste, now a part of the Republic Services company, ends in October 2015.
A complaint regarding the existing contract is costs are not based on volume.
Allied's existing contract is based on service, not volume.
Allied picks up trash and recyclables - each in a designated cart - once a week at a fixed fee (a provision for smaller carts carries a lower fee).
Previously, the company, then known as Laidlaw, picked up designated bags purchased by customers, which linked costs to trash volume.
Most customers pay monthly service bills - utilities, water - based on volume. Cable television is a variant; customers aren't charged based on how much they watch, but they may select a level of programming consistent with their viewing habits.
Criticism of the existing trash service is that its one-size-fits-all model penalizes low-volume customers.
The company's transition to the cart service is based on economics.
When the bag service was in effect, employees on the back of the truck would retrieve the bags.
With the cart service, the driver uses a mechanical arm to dump the carts. Added manpower, and liability, are eliminated, reducing company costs which, theoretically translates into lower fees for customers.
The ideal is a service that is profitable for a company and fair and reasonable for customers. Such a service likely would be tied to volume.
In the "Your Opinion" forum in August, Frank Rycyk offered some ideas. He wrote: "There are many possibilities. We could bill for solid-waste service based upon the number of residents in a household. We could offer an alternative one-time per month service. How about orange cans to be picked up only on the first week of the month? We could install electronic scales on the pick-up arms of garbage trucks to weigh the can and its contents. Our monthly bill would be based upon the weight of our garbage and recycling."
Are these possibilities offered by solid waste service providers? Do other alternatives exist?
City officials plan to survey interested residents.
This is your chance not only to complain about what is, but to suggest what could be.