 Messages |
Topics |
Attachments
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Messages - BHA
Pages: [1]
1
« on: February 03, 2017, 07:21:20 AM »
As of today, Casella is not using side loading trucks, they still have to get out and move the bins behind the truck to use the lift. Don't know when (or if) they will get a side loader. Until they do, I don't think they care about the placement of the bins. In fact they routinely put the first one emptied right next to the other bin even if I've placed them 3' apart.
And yes this solution is much more easily implemented "in town" where people have short driveways, more likely paved than those at homes outside of town and flat areas at the curb. Well before the first snow flew one of the guys on the truck told me the carts don't roll in snow, the wheels just get packed in. I carry mine (I asked for 32 gallon, they do not roll on the stones that lead up to the porch and even they are cumbersome to carry) from the enclosed porch to the NOT curb and try to find somewhere fairly level to place them. Not easy as every time Nichols Rd is graded and filled the road gets higher and the angle of my "driveway" gets steeper.
I'm guessing the people in the 8 houses on Upper Meadow Road swung a deal to pay Casella a bit extra to go up their private road because after about 3 weeks of various and sometimes amuzing methods being tried to get the cans down to the main road, the trucks started going up instead.
2
« on: February 03, 2017, 06:35:23 AM »
A young orange cat showed up in my barn on Wednesday, Feb 1st. I would guess him to be about 3 months old. Hungry but not overly thin. Healthy, talkative and friendly.
524-9994
Bruce
3
« on: March 12, 2016, 04:04:50 PM »
Thanks for the update mrs.freddie Clearly we don't buy enough 'stuff' (or maybe don't clean out often enough  ) What the heck are people putting out at the curb every week to generate that much volume? I can't imagine filling a 30 gallon can weekly let alone a 64 gallon can. If I were to flatten out the "mostly air" things in the trash, the 30 gallon can wouldn't be 1/4 full most weeks. And most weeks 2 of the small blue bins of unflattened (except cardboard) recycles is plenty.
4
« on: March 10, 2016, 02:19:39 PM »
My Monday nights don't allow me to go to the SB meetings.
What was the general discussion re Casella?
IIRC the Article 3 details were "flexible", one of the things that bothered me about it. Vote to spend "this" much money and get "well, we don't really know" service for it. For instance the dollar value we were quoted included new trash receptacles for all but that wasn't a "must do".
My taxes will go up whether they stick with a property assessment or fixed per household payment method and I will continue to subsidize people who generate a lot of trash and recycle little. I am hopeful that "perks" like new receptacles that don't benefit people will be pulled and the increased cost of curbside collection minimized as much as possible. For instance, my family of 3 (4 when the college kid is home) doesn't generate enough trash OR recycles to need weekly pickup. Not even enough to require it every other week. All of my organics go either to the chickens or the compost pile so I don't have an issue with things maybe getting stinky if they sit around too long. I know that isn't true for everyone but maybe with a bit of effort people can reduce the physical volume of their recycles and trash (squashing plastic bottles, gable tops, etc) and we could go to an every other week pickup schedule to save a fair bit of money.
5
« on: March 02, 2016, 01:15:55 PM »
Oh my. I wonder how many loads of recycles Duffy picked up that went straight to the trash stream. How do we get this corrected? Especially if it was sent out by the town (but NOT officially?  ). It has been on my refrigerator for, what, about a year?? And everyone has been "recycling" things we are not supposed to recycle all that time? Certainly no one from Duffy's ever let me know I was not supposed to put styrofoam in the recycle bins and sometimes it was big blocks not just less obvious meat trays mixed in with the paper, plastic "bottles" and metal cans.
6
« on: March 01, 2016, 01:04:56 PM »
Thanks for that correction. It might be of value if an accurate sheet was sent out since I suspect I am not the only person who ASSUMED what was sent was accurate and would not think to look for anything else. I am also glad that I do not clad myself in hazardous waste every day! The link http://cswd.net/recycling/a-z/ is CSWD. I ASSUME it is Act 148 driven and the same statewide. I guess the people at the Williston MRF must be busy every week with picking styrofoam out of the my recycles and that of others. I was surprised to see it on the "recycle" list but am quite happy to recycle everything I can. I couldn't figure out why ground meat trays had no recycle number, they look the same as all the others to me. Ray at Georgia Market didn't know either so I ASSUMED that maybe ground meat was more likely to "taint" the foam. Guess not! The site does say that styrofoam is recyclable but not in Vermont. More densely populated places generate enough to make it economically viable, ASSUMING people clean the food trays (I expect the biggest problem is with those that held meat) which is a big assumption.
7
« on: March 01, 2016, 12:37:14 PM »
I did apologize for saying she was of THIS district and not Chittenden. I see you saw that on the other post, I did this in two places in response.
Katie saw it and responded...
It's a common mistake, but one that needs to be clarified. Now you know Smiley Thanks for responding, mkr.
We good BHA?
No problems. I think most everyone is trying to make sure all the available facts are posted and any errors are cleared up so those reading but not posting aren't working with misinformation. That becomes especially difficult with at least 3 active threads related to the topic.
8
« on: March 01, 2016, 07:32:55 AM »
And just to be clear, us joining the district benefits your office Katie.
You also posted this in at least one other thread and were corrected there. MrsFredrick does not work for the Northwest Solid Waste District but the Chittenden Solid Waste District. You apologized for the misinformation in the other thread and should do so here as well given some people may not see the other posts.
9
« on: March 01, 2016, 07:09:39 AM »
And just to be clear, us joining the district benefits your office Katie.
As for set it and forget it for picking a hauler. That is not the case with all haulers, as I have now heard of nightmares where people fight to get charged properly on a regular basis from some haulers. So it is important if the vote is no that you seriously look into your haulers and find out from locals their experience.
Also something not mentioned is the $22/ton we get charged from the district if we vote no and go on our own for haulers. Not only do we have the district charge but the garbage you have hauled away or brought to the district, the district will be billing us $22 a ton to the town. I heard this during town meeting yesterday as well. So about $40,000-$50,000 for initial, and a yearly charge, plus our bag charge and then the district bills us $22/ton as well.
Also if you go to the district, zero sort does not occur for recycling and this is something I think is important to let people know as well. Your haulers just take it away where if you bring to the district you have to do the sort there.
ACT 148 is included in the Casella bid and so that would not be an issue the town would have to worry about either "Yes" or "No" vote.
I want everyone to be well informed of all options and also those charges not mentioned so everyone can think thru this and vote how they feel best meets their needs.
$40 to $50K to join the district is WRONG! And sadly posted in several places. It is $2.50/capita. That means $2.50 for each resident of the town. The population at the 2010 census was 4,285. Even if it is now 5,000 (I have no idea), the cost to join is $12,500.
10
« on: March 01, 2016, 07:04:29 AM »
Kind of late for most people I'm sure but one additional thought:
If the town joins the waste district, there are many items they will take (some at cost) that the haulers will NOT take. I'm not even sure what to do with those things now. I guess there are the 'special' days like hazardous waste day (and why is clothing considered hazardous waste??). But that means you need to save it all up and take it to the collection point on the specific day (April 18 last year). If the town is part of the waste district you can get rid of all that stuff 6 days a week at the Georgia station whether you choose to contract for curbside pickup or not. For the items that cost, you will pay either way but you won't be storing them in your house or garage for up to a year.
11
« on: March 01, 2016, 06:47:31 AM »
is there more quotes other than Casella?
Based on everything presented at the special Thursday meeting and at Town Meeting, No.
12
« on: February 28, 2016, 02:13:24 PM »
In answer to your first question: No. It is Casella. The board, when asked, said they had not heard anything from Myers after the info meetings and no other haulers were bidding.
There was a question at Town Meeting about the liability of not conforming with the Act 148 rules. It will be in the contract that Casella will be liable (and they agree with that) but when pressed, yes if Casella fails and there are fines they are not able to pay, the town is liable. But it does sound like Casella would be 100% responsible for all parts of Act 148 including the SWIT, education, etc. Whether we vote Yes or No, the town Select Board will be out of the trash business with respect to adhering to Act 148.
The second question: Yes. If the town votes No, there will be no town wide single contract curbside pickup and we will join the solid waste district. People can choose to always take their stuff to any transfer station in the district (not all take all items, the Georgia location takes everything the district accepts) or contract for curbside with any hauler or do a combination. I suspect the latter will be the case for a number of people since the waste district takes things the haulers will not. The cost to join and stay with the waste district are not even a decimal point in the town budget.
One thing that was news to me: Fairfax business properties pay the 9 cent trash tax but have to contract for their disposal needs. In other words, they are paying (subsidizing others) for something they can not use.
13
« on: February 27, 2016, 06:14:00 PM »
I went to the Thursday info meeting and the town meeting. It bothers me that the cost of "keep it as it is" with Cassella is really fuzzy. They have their initial price but that includes new large trash barrels that a truck can pick up (and apparently they need a new truck to do this). But we don't HAVE to get new barrels, we could stick with what we have now and it would cost less. And there could be every week service for both trash and recycles or every other week for trash and every week for recycles or other unknown options. I'm not sure how one is supposed vote for a budget item when they truly have no idea how much it is going to cost or what they are buying. We did find out today at town meeting what it currently costs each of us. Their numbers are always "per household" but that is very misleading. The truth is that $0.09 of the $0.4838 municipal tax is for trash. Multiply your grand list value by 9 cents to see what you are paying specifically for curbside trash pickup. Some examples: | grand list | per year | per month | per week | | $100,000 | $90 | $7.50 | $1.73 | | $200,000 | $180 | $15.00 | $3.46 | | $300,000 | $270 | $22.50 | $5.19 |
The numbers they gave us suggest the cost will be about double what we currently pay. Or less than double, again the fuzzy numbers and service level make it impossible to know. They also talked about having a fixed cost per household instead of linking to the grand list. But they won't decide how we will pay until the vote happens and (obviously) only if the majority vote yes. In reality, both options are unfair since some people generate very little trash and recycle every scrap they can. Others are the opposite, perhaps not recycling at all. Obviously someone with a low grand list value does better with continuing curbside pickup, especially if they have a 30 gallon bag every week. No driving to drop it off and less than the $4 they would pay at the transfer station. This same person would pay a lot more if they had to contract with a hauler. On the other hand, a 15 gallon bag costs $2 with NWSWD so if they generated little trash, it will cost them more to continue curbside pickup, especially if they happen to drive by one of the transfer stations on a regular basis. For me, personally, I lived in South Burlington for 28 years and never paid for curbside pickup. I had a trash compactor and once a month or so would add a trip to the transfer station on Patchen Road to my Saturday errands. How often that happened was usually determined by when the 4 blue bins were full. We would smash down cans and plastic milk bottles etc. They charged $2.50 for a compactor bag. $2.50/month or $35/month? It was not a hard decision for me. We don't generate any more trash here in Fairfax (probably less with a daughter at college out of state 9 months of the year) but with curbside pickup we don't bother with efficiency in filling the blue bins. I think we would all agree curbside is very convenient but as others mentioned, where is the incentive to put as little as possible in the waste stream if one pays the same amount whether something goes in the trash or a recycle bin? With regard to trash on the roads, I really don't know how many people would litter vs go to the transfer station or contract a hauler. I do know that the trash barrel I am using was free. I found it in the wetland area on my property after a very strong wind on trash day. I placed it at the "curb" and left it there for 2 weeks, no one came to claim it. Likewise, things in uncovered blue bins and trash cans find their way to the roadside before the hauler comes through. How much of what we find on the side of the road was thrown there and how much was properly put in uncovered blue bins or uncovered trash cans?
Pages: [1]
|
Show Posts
