So Shreveport readers, how do you feel about this? And if you're not a Shreveport reader, please share with us what YOUR city charges for garbage and/or recycling collection.From KTBS:
The city of Shreveport on Jan. 1 will begin assessing a $2.50 a month fee for residential garbage pickup, plus a $2.50 fee for recycling. Both collection fees will be added to monthly water-and-sewerage bills. In the past, sanitation was part of the city services paid for through tax revenues.What about the people that don't recycle? My mom is 86 years old and has never put anything into her blue bin. It's not that she doesn't care about recycling, but she doesn't sort her trash, she can't carry it outside, and she surely can't roll the bin to the street on Mondays. But it seems she'll have to pay her $2.50 to cover everyone else who recycles. She pays extra for "backyard pickup" so that she doesn't have to drag her garbage to the street.
True, we're only talking about $60 a year, but that's still $60. To senior citizens on a fixed income this is just another rising expense in a list of many chipping away at their monthly income.
This new fee was voted on in November of this year and approved by the City Council in a 5-2 vote. It was apparently precipitated by protesting sanitation workers who drive "rickety trucks" with no A/C. The tax revenue presently collected covers the pickup charges, but the new fee will cover new trucks.
I'd like to know if there's an opt-out option for people that would just prefer to dispose of their own garbage.
2 comments:
What! The city of Shreveport lets your 86-year-old mom get away with not recycling? In Ithaca, NY, I once threw a few sheets of newspaper that I had been using to potty train a new puppy into the garbage can and got a fine notice. I can't remember the amount now, but it was hefty. Ithaca used to have people actually comb through garbage cans on pick-up day looking for contraband "recyclables" whenever they changed their recycle policies. I don't know it they can afford to do that now--I moved out of the city limits.
To answer your question about costs: Ithaca "provides" recyclables pickup for households, but not for garbage: every other week for recycles, once a week for garbage.
You have to buy sticky tags to attach to each garbage can or trash bag at a cost of $3.25 each. The garbage cans or bags cannot weigh more than 35 pounds.
Your Mom probably throws out one little bag of trash a week. Hereabouts, she would pay $3.50 a week for her pick-up, plus the trouble of washing her cans and bottles, dismantling her cardboard boxes, sorting and packaging her paper together, storing all of it someplace for two weeks, and getting them to the curb somehow. If she had any weed clippings or autumn leaves to get rid of, she would have to get them packed in pricey recyclable lawn bags. I never heard of any local provisions being made for "backyard pickup" for the sick or elderly, and a lot of unsavory types just let their trash pile up on their porches or in their yards or garages for rats to breed in.
I did feel sorry for the sanitation workers. The $$$ was not going to them. At one time there were only 2 men doing pick-up for the entire city (I knew one of them), population about 25,000. It was brutal. But the libs had "higher" priorities.
Louisville the city and Jefferson County merged about 5 years ago. At that time the county paid for it's garbage pick-up and the city got it as part of their taxes. All recycling was you taking your stuff to a center.
After the merger the city of Louisville has weekly pick up of garbage which has to be in the special cans provided and at the curbe. A recycling truck comes around once a month and picks that up if it's in the special bin.
I don't live in the city so I pay $23 a month for commercial garbage pick up once a month. I take my recycle stuff to the center.
The tax rate on real estate is the same per M in the city and county. This is quite a bone of contention.
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