New Trash Contract

Adapted from a post I made today on Allaboutamesbury.net:

Our 2008 Refuse Removal expense is $700K and our Recycling expense is $140K, for a total of $840K. This is based on the advantageous terms of a 20 year old expiring contract. From what I have heard in various conversations about this, we can expect to pay up to 100% more for this under a new contract, providing service at the current level ($1.6M). That's a huge increase, needless to say.

A few thoughts. I'll start by saying that I only have limited knowledge about our options on this, regarding how the service might be re-configured. The most obvious alternative is going to fee-for-service, where households and businesses would pay per bag or bin directly, e.g. by buying trash stickers at local markets. On the one hand, this directly ties production of waste with the cost of removing it, which would have the virtue of directly discouraging waste production and encouraging recycling. On the other hand, moving to direct pay would add a new fee to our costs of living, merely shifting the cost from our property tax burden to our household budgets. It is an open but important question whether or not our net cost (all households) for waste removal would be cheaper if we buy the service collectively (via City contract) or pay for it one bag at a time (fee-for-service). That would be my primary question here, which would be cheaper in the end for the residents.

Regarding the question about fairly distributing the cost of waste removal (e.g. why should condo owners pay for a benefit they do not receive from the municipality?)--this is akin to the question of why households that don't have children in school should pay for schools, that don't have seniors at home should pay for the senior center or, better, why residents on private roads should pay for plowing that they don't receive. There are complications to this but there are compelling policy reasons why such costs are borne collectively and not based on use only. The cost of waste removal seems to me to fall in with these other costs. So, that reasoning alone isn't compelling to me for switching to a fee-for-service structure.

So, I'll be interested to hear about our City's alternatives in this regard. As I understand it, this issue would only come to the Municipal Council as part of the FY2009 budget, so our ability to influence the structure of this contract may be limited.