[Durham INC] 66% failure rate on waste collection this week

[RW Pickle]

First week of Solid Waste weekly operated bulky item pick up (it would
have been our regular monthly pick up as well had it not changed to
weekly) and recycling (but not this week over here). Our brown containers
(yard waste) as well as bulky items are still at the curb (put out Monday
night for Tuesday pick up). Any other neighborhood have the same issues?

Had this been a recycling week and it had not been picked up (although
many blue roll-out containers could be seen at the street this week), that
would have meant a 75% failure rate. As it was, it was a 66% failure rate
(over here). I guess we'll just have to look at these blue containers at
the curbside for another week or two until their collection day rolls
around. Obviously these folks missed the schedule (or just really liked
weekly collection...).

That would be too much for any business to tolerate and stay in business.
But your tax dollars fund this operation. You guess the City
Administration cares if regularly, by their own actions, they cause the
citizens to defy ordinances put in place to get trash cans off the curb in
a timely manner? That ordinance was part of an INC agenda to help the
appearance of our community. Yet, we fail to enforce it and the City
forces us to become violators of it. It just doesn't seem right...

City Council passed ordinances in 1997 that mandated that we all recycle
certain items from the waste stream. You think if we bag our waste (like
another ordinance says we must) in black Glad trash bags, anyone can tell
if you recycle or not? Or what you choose to recycle? Or even if you have
thrown away some waste designated as hazardous waste? They can't... And if
it's an automated truck that picks up your waste, the chances of it seeing
what you've thrown away are even less. We are mandated to recycle plastic
yet we are required to bag our waste in it. Makes no sense...

If you live in the City, you can buy a County Transfer Station permit for
$50 ($80 if you live in the County and do not pay City taxes as well). It
entitles you to go and dump just about any thing you have to dispose of at
the rate of just driving there as many times during a day/week as you care
to go. No other fee but the initial permit, your time and vehicle. All of
that waste is then transported to the transfer station where it goes to
Virginia. But if you haul your trash to the Transfer Station; your time,
your vehicle, then you are charged for every ton that crosses the scale.
How does that make sense when for $50/year you can dump all you want at
any County Transfer Station? It doesn't. If I reside in the City and have
free waste removal already (well... tax base funded removal), but do not
waste any of the resources of waste pick up and hauling (to get it to the
same place), why should I be punished and have to pay to dispose of waste
that is already being picked up for free? Yet more senseless thought
processes...

We no longer have the free fall and spring cleanup dump days and we are
led to believe they are not needed (since the City keeps increasing what
and how often they pick up our waste). There was a reason they were so
successful. We needed them! I don't care how much/often the City says it
is going to pick up our waste, as long as the fellow has it on his truck
and can't take it to the transfer station (where ALL waste goes) without
being penalized for doing the right thing, then when he illegally dumps it
as he does, it costs us to clean it up. So how do we as taxpayers win at
that game? We don't. There must be incentives to getting ALL the waste.
Picking it up is just not enough. Free disposal only works when let the
City do all the work. We want to save them some effort in pick up and
hauling, it just costs us. This is just backwards...

RWP
27 Beverly