INC NEWS - Free dump days not a good solution

[Kelly Jarrett, DISC]

Randy--
With all due respect, I think this service is great. Free dump days only 
work for those who have access to vehicles (trucks) to transport things 
to the dump. Without that, there's no way to get your big items to the 
dump. They offered this bulk service regularly in New Haven when I lived 
there--although I think they did it on a quarterly rather than weekly 
basis--and it was great. For me, this is the kind of service that makes 
me feel I get something I need for my tax dollars.

Kelly

RW Pickle wrote:
> I spent some time today figuring out the new bulky item (basically
> furniture and appliances) pick up schedule. I was confused and I'm sure
> there are others out there in the same boat. Here it goes...
>
> Typical waste is picked up on one of four days; Monday, Tuesday, Thursday
> or Friday. If you think of Monday as being 1, Tuesday as 2, Thursday as 3
> and Friday as 4, then what ever day of the week your regular waste is
> picked up on will correspond to that full week of the month (Monday is the
> first full week, Tuesday is the second full week, Thursday is the third
> week and Friday is the last week of the month). Since this new service is
> only once a month, it does the whole City in one of 4 weeks.
>
> The program begins on the Monday of the week that your regular waste is
> picked up. Even if your regular waste is picked up on Thursday, the bulky
> item program begins on that Monday of that week. They want three days to
> get it in so it may still be there for a couple of days, but they say they
> will get it.
>
> What bothers me more with the price of fuel, labor costs, equipment and
> maintenance this program offers, is that now at least once a month, we'll
> have five waste trucks in our neighborhood. Five trucks to pick up our
> trash. The new program will put an additional two trips a week (once a
> month; by the same type of vehicle) to pick up in one pass the appliances
> and in the next trip, the furniture. So now we have the green can truck,
> the brown can truck, the recycling truck of TFC, and 2 trips by these new
> knuckle-boom trucks. Doesn't that seem excessive? That means that in a
> month (typically 4 weeks), 14 trips by various waste trucks will be in
> your neighborhood picking up waste. When you think about it that way, you
> have to wonder why there is any trash out there in the first place with so
> many opportunities to get rid of it. Yet, if you haul waste to the
> transfer station on your time, in your vehicle, you are still charged for
> disposal. It's this attitude of not wanting the waste (even though trucks
> are driving all across the City picking it up) bad enough to reward those
> who would not cost the City a dime for collection by bringing their waste
> to them for disposal. A free dump day a month for all residents would
> yield much more waste than any new program could possibly ever pick up.
> You need only go and see for yourself (at the Transfer Station) the
> once-a-year it now happens. It's a very popular idea and an enormous
> amount of waste is collected. All with no collection cost associated with
> it...
>
> If you're a City ($50) or County ($80) resident, you can buy a waste
> disposal decal from the County and go 10 times a day if you want to the
> numerous disposal sites in the County. You can do that every day they are
> open if you want and it's only the $50/$80 decal fee (for a year). This
> makes disposal fees much cheaper over the course of the year instead of
> paying the City at the Transfer Station. It all (both City and County
> waste) comes to the same place (the Transfer Station) before it all gets
> hauled off to Virginia...
>
> RWP
> 27 Beverly
>
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-- 
Dr. Kelly Jarrett		
Sr. Program Coordinator
Duke Islamic Studies Center
124 Franklin Center, Box 90402
2204 Erwin Road
Durham, NC  27708

Phone: 919-668-2143	
FAX: 919-684-8749
			
http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/disc/