Budget Buzz: Possible $avings from reducing garbage pickup days to one

July 17, 2009
by Christine Yeres

Every New Castle household pays $520 per year for garbage and recycling collection. Dropping from two pickups a week to one could save around $200,000 a year, about 8% or $35 per household. Cutting the number of runs would not cut garbage collection costs in half, explained Faiella, because existing routes would be reorganized and more trucks per day would run. The exception to the one pick-up per week rule would be the condominium developments. Typically, the dumpsters shared by condominium owners have limited capacity and thus would require continued collection twice per week. Currently, each condominium owner pays 60% of the $520 per year paid by single family home owners.

Supervisor Barbara Gerrard reported that the town’s sustainability advisory board harbored hopes that one pick-up per week would cause people to recycle even more conscientiously.  The town residents maintain a high level of recycling, reported Faiella, “which keeps the garbage tonnage down and allows us to go to one day.” At about $76 per ton, New Castle’s independent contract for garbage collection has the town paying lower fees than those of surrounding towns belonging to the county’s solid waste district. Had New Castle joined that consortium of towns, the fee for New Castle would have been $203 per ton.

NewCastleNOW.org surveyed this week’s Wednesday concert goers to learn whether they believed the collective savings to the town of $200,000 was an amount that made it worth cutting out one of their collection days. Reaction was mixed.  See “What some residents think about cutting garbage pick-up to one day,” in this edition of NewCastleNOW.org.
__________________________________________
To find our archived budget articles all in one place, click here: Budget Buzz: Collected articles on Town of New Castle taxes
__________________________________________
Write the town board with your budget ideas (their addresses are below), and copy us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address):
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
_____________________________________________________
Thanks for reading NewCastleNOW.org.
What do you like about the site; how could it be better?
Let us hear from you.
Write .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
_____________________________________________________

Tweet