November 20 Letter to Editor

[Don Haddix]

I submitted another Letter to the Editor, this time to The Citizen and Today and Peachtree City.

Haddix on trash and Wieland rezoning

Tue, 11/18/2008 - 4:59pm
By: Letters to the ...
With so many issues in the public eye it seemed to be a good time for another letter to the editor.

Full Article (http://www.thecitizen.com/%7Ecitizen0/node/33311)

I add the link to Today in Peachtree City when it is available.

[ccdale]

Dear Mr. Haddix, I read your column in this week’s paper and wanted to say thank you for keeping the PTC citizens up to date on important issues. I am SO glad you have questions and concerns about the one trash collector issue because I have the same concerns and more.
I wrote a letter to the editor of the same paper a couple of weeks ago. Don’t know if you saw it but I stated that I had had very good service from Allied Waste for 14 years and didn’t mind paying extra for recycling but switched to CLM when AW discontinued their yard waste pick up. Since I have 230 rose bushes and daily clippings from the bushes, yard waste pick up is very important to me but I have not seen any mention of it being a requirement or an option in any of the city contracts. Of course, I could go out to Rockaway Road but this is quite a hike from Kedron Village and is quite nasty standing in the muck out there. I am more than willing to pay extra for this service IF it will be provided.
When I switched to CLM I was told that recycling was free. This was great until they missed my pick up several weeks in a row. When I called customer service I was told that they don’t use a separate recycling truck à first red flag that there could be a problem! They use (or did at that time) recycle bins that attach to the side of the regular trash truck. If your house is at the end of a route like mine was and their bins are filled up, you are out of luck! What good is free recycling if it doesn’t work? Also, on more than one occasion we saw recycles (and yard waste) being dumped in the truck with the household trash. I have been told by a former AW employee that this is not unique to CLM but is a common occurrence with other companies when trash companies don’t want to run two trucks, pay yard waste disposal fees, or mess with recycles.
When I first signed on with CLM they told me that yard waste was $2/bag but they changed this a couple times (it was hard to get a straight answer from them) and they have increased the price of household waste pick up 3 times in 2 years. I finally had enough. I kept CLM for household trash and hired a small, family-owned firm that only does recycles and yard waste, Stonebridge Premium Recycling, out of Carrollton. They do it the right way, using separate trucks for recycles and yard waste even on the same day of the week and you are not charged if you don’t put anything out that week. You can get them anytime, day or night. I am very happy with their service! I shouldn’t have to employ TWO trash companies but it is important to me and to the environment that recycles and yard waste are handled properly.
IF the city decides to go with one trash company it will be important that they stipulate the use of separate trucks – one for household trash and one for recycles to prevent it all being dumped together and IF yard waste pick up is not an option I want to be able to keep Stonebridge Premium Recycling coming to my home for this purpose. Thank you for reading this and for your vigilance in this matter. Cindy Dale, rosepro@bellsouth.net

[Don Haddix]

Thank you, Ms. Dale.

Yes, I saw your letter and one of the reasons I did another Letter to the Editor was because mandating solid waste plus recycling, but not one provider, was what I proposed. That was not said anywhere in print until my Letter. And it is more than a suggestion, it has four Council Members backing it.

As for CLM, I got at lot of emails concerning them. A lot. And thus just one more reason against PTC mandating a single provider.

As for trucks, providers will either do a truck per service or a compartmented truck. No containers hanging on sides of trucks.

Plus drip/leak collection pans underneath to stop or greatly reduce potential messes on the streets.

It does not make everyone happy, but mandating one provider would have made even a larger number unhappy.

We will keep striving. Someone gave me a link to an alternative/additional approach to recycling. I passed it along to Staff for further research.

We will keep trying to make it better over time.