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From The Dispatch:
Columbus unveils subscription plan for yard waste pickup
By Rober VitaleColumbus plans to restore yard-waste collection, but residents will have to pay for it directly. The Department of Public Service said this morning that it plans to introduce a subscription service through Rumpke of Ohio Inc., the private company that picked up yard waste until the city ended its contract during a round of January budget cuts. The reintroduced service will cost $49.50 for a six-month subscription. That breaks down to $1.90 a week.
Free idea for any entrepreneur out there: offer one-time pickup for like $10 or $20. I’d be willing to bet a lot of folks only need this like twice a season. They’d come out ahead with such a service. You can just make a quick run to those free recyclers and come out ahead.
I’ll take it all. Well alot of it. Excellent material for compost. (No cigarettes please). If we could establish a central composting lot, we would all have free fertilizer for our vegetable gardens. I’ve been collecting bags in the Short North. Some people thought I was punking them, asking for their leaves. But I have a huge barrel composter, plans for additional composters in the future and lots of green material from the restaurant for proper nitrogen/carbon ratio.
As soon as the community garden campus is complete at the Conservatory, they might need material. I’ll speak with Bill Dawson about this.
Great idea nitrogenman.
I hope we can get a centralized dumpoff spot. :)
We aren’t composting yet, but I would have no problem dumping my yard waste off to someone who is.
In case you want to check out a good urban composter
http://www.mantis.com/ctwin.asp
As soon as I return from a biodynamic training course at the Pfeiffer Center in New York I will be posting composting info on http://www.seedtotablecookbook.blogspot.com
a six-month subscription is an odd, but probably lucrative, concept for something that is needed 1-2x per year. one way to deal with this would be to pool resources and have one neighbor subscribe for a collective group of households.
my main issue with a subscription issue however is that most people will simply avoid paying it, and yard waste will end up in regular garbage, dumpsters, empty lots and anywhere else.
My alley is filling up fast. :(
one alley over looks like a 3rd world country. I’ve emailed 311 about it to no avail. can’t wait to move across the tracks.
I’ll pay for this service, happily.
Nitrogenman, pm me if you’d like to pick up many bags (leaves only, possibly tiny sticks) in weinland park until this service gets up and running.
People keep putting bags out in front of their houses around my neighborhood (Harrison west) do they think someone is coming to get it?
I cleaned my yard last week and have 8 bags stitting around. Guessing they will end up in the dumpster when they are empty.
I’m quite sure that there are people who have no clue the free service was discontinued — I don’t think they sent out letters about it (not that I saw anyway), and I know plenty of people who would’ve missed the news, paper, or myriad online notices. Some people just aren’t that “connected”.
Just in case anyone wants to, at least decrease the volume of the stuff, I recommend putting the leaves in large garbage can and processing the material with a weed wacker. Then at least you’ll have one bag instead of 10 and then I can come and take the stuff off your hands or you can simply mix into your plant beds.
Who wants to bet that the subscriptions will be Jan-Jun and Jul-Dec?
There is a fellow in German Village who has taken the initiative on this issue and is offering to collect people’s yard waste. Here is the article where I found out about it: http://www.thisweeknews.com/live/content/germanvillage/stories/2009/03/04/0305gevillage_ln.html?sid=104
nitrogenman, if you want a bunch of lawn bags full of leaves and sticks. send me a PM. All yours if you can come get it.
Talk about a BAD deal for the home owners. According to the Dispatch article, the city was saving $3 Million for stopping the Rumpke service for the ENTIRE city.
However at these rates the current 230,000 home owners in Columbus would be paying Rumpke over $11,385,000 for only 6 months of service. The past contract only cost $13.04 per year per home owner.
We need to let our council and Mayor aware that this will not work. Not to mention the adverse impact for those that don’t or can’t pay. I already am seeing our trash cans in the alley overfill with yard waste. Not to mention the homes with bags sitting at the curb for the last month.
Anyone have an ear of the people in the Ivory Tower? We need a better solution to this.
Isn’t this subscription-based service optional though? I don’t think we’ll see anywhere close to 100% participation.
A better solution = composting or hauling away your yard waste to one of the free disposal sites.
Actually, speaking of the Ivory Tower, I bet someone at an econ department at a local university could probably come up with a better idea. Anyone know a local econ prof?
This will go further than just costs paid to Rumpke. The area haulers are charging $2/bag or bundle to haul away this yard waste. Min. purchase is 30 stickers or $60.00. So lets say that overall 10% (23,000 homes) of residents participate in the Rumpke Program and another 15% (34,500 homes) use local servicers. This will cost taxpayers easily over $3 million and only serve 25% of the homes. The cost to haul your own to the sites has already been spelled out in earlier forums and will cost even more when factoring in the enviromental factors of expenditure of gas etc. This will still leave the “leaves” of 75% of the homes needing somewhere to go.
Not to mention who will pay for clean up of yard waste after storms?
Compost piles are nice but I would think that some yards are not suitable for them…ie to close to other homes, or not enough space.
What I am basically saying is that it is better to provide a service to ALL home owners rather than have 25% paying more than it would cost for everyone. Oh, one thing I almost forgot is that the City will pay more for tipping fees once more yard waste gets dumped in the trash bins. This also shortens the life of the landfill costing more $$$.
But if the city was paying Rumpke for a large contract to service 100% of the residents and not everyone was utilizing the service, isn’t that a waste of taxpayer money?
I can understand the subscription-service being more expensive, as Rumpke is setting up a bunch of smaller household services and the management and logistics that go along with it, whereas before they had one big massive contract through the city to potentially service everyone.
Ultimately though, at the end of the day it seems like the era of the city paying for yard waste removal has passed and any new solution is going to require citizens to pay directly for it. So wouldn’t that mean a this is a “bad deal” for homeowners no matter what?
Press Release:
City Proposing Voluntary Weekly Yard-Waste Subscription Program
The Columbus Department of Public Service is recommending a new yard-waste subscription program for weekly residential collection. Faced with budget challenges, Columbus was unable to renew its $4 million contract in February with Rumpke of Ohio Inc. for weekly citywide service. But with approval from Columbus City Council, the department set aside funds in hopes of determining a way to offer a limited yard-waste program.
The department is now recommending an allocation of up to $1 million to Rumpke so the company can provide collection services at a relatively low cost to residents. Residents would pay Rumpke $49.50 for six months of weekly subsription service, which breaks down to $1.90 a week.
“Our residents asked us to find a way to offer some type of yard-waste service,†Public Service Director Mark Kelsey said. “The subscription service we are proposing is the best viable option.â€Â
Kelsey said Public Service considered two other options: providing service to each of the 230,000 households once in the spring and once in the fall, or providing no service.
“We received phone calls and emails from about 1,000 residents, and it was clear from what we heard that limited collections would not adequately serve our residents,†Kelsey said, “and no collections were unacceptable.â€Â
Residents would have the option of signing up for six months—renewable for another six months—or for one year of service. Rumpke would collect up to 15 bags, containers or bundles of yard waste each week from subscribers. Rumpke is prepared to begin offering the service in mid-to-late April.
Kelsey said subscription service would satisfy four main concerns:
· It would meet the publics’ demand for weekly collections.
· It would further the city’s green agenda since yard waste is recyclable.
· It would save the City money in tipping fees by keeping yard waste out of the Franklin County Landfill.
· It would handle limbs and other debris left on residential property after wind storms.
Councilmember Hearcel Craig has scheduled a public hearing on the yard waste-collection proposal at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 2, in City Council Chambers. The full Council is expected to vote on the proposal the following Monday, April 6.
Walker Says:
March 23rd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Isn’t this subscription-based service optional though? I don’t think we’ll see anywhere close to 100% participation.
A better solution = composting or hauling away your yard waste to one of the free disposal sites.)
you’re right their most likly won’t be 100% of the home owners using this but their will be a ton of yard waste in the dumpsters.But the city did just that on their last pick up it made no sense
But I will pay for the service I am most likly the only one on my block that will