AGENDA #2

 

MEMORANDUM

 

 

TO:                  Mayor and Town Council

 

FROM:            W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager

 

SUBJECT:       Report on Curbside Collection

 

DATE:             May 3, 2000

 

 

The following staff report and its attachments represent most of the information that has been generated during the past decade of discussion on a curbside collection program.

 

The proposal, in general terms, would replace the current bi-weekly, rear yard collection of household refuse with weekly curbside collection.  The Town would purchase and distribute to each residence a covered, wheeled plastic container to store household refuse.  The resident would wheel the cart to the curb once a week and return it to the side or rear yard after the Town crew has emptied it. 

 

Residents would continue to take their recyclables to the curb in the recycling bin and would continue to leave yard waste at the curb in either small piles or in a yard waste container.  Collection from multi-family and commercial containers would not be impacted.

 

While this program would include all single family and duplex residences, residents physically unable to take their carts to the curb would be exempted. 

 

The staff has determined this program to be technically feasible and financially advantageous.  We have considerable information derived from the experience of other localities as well as from the Town’s curbside pilot program conducted in 1991.  Nevertheless, all of the operational and policy details have not been determined.  We await the Council’s guidance.

 

The material attached includes a budget working paper from the Director of Public Works to the Town Manager, dated May 3, 2000, which responds to questions raised at the Council’s April 12 work session.  Attachments include:

 

  1. Manager’s memo to Council, April 12, 2000, discussing primarily cost and budgetary questions. (begin new page 1)
  2. Public Works Department Staff Report, February 13, 1992, reporting on the 1991 pilot program (The sections on budget information are out-of-date.) (p. 6).
  3. Summary report from FGI, titled “Weekly Garbage Collection Attitude Survey,” conducted at the end of the pilot program (p. 17).
  4. Chart from the Public Works Department, “On-the-Job Injuries, 3+ Year History,” prepared April 13, 2000 (p. 22)
  5. EPA booklet, “Collection Efficiency: Strategies for Success,” December 1999 (begin new page 1)
  6. EPA booklet, “Getting More for Less,” November 1999 (begin new page 1)

 

Not all attachments to the items listed above are included, because they are repetitive or they include primarily cost and budget data that are now out-of-date.