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Cape Girardeau City Council approves $2.36 million for automated trash collectionTuesday, November 3, 2009
The council approved spending $2.36 million from the sale of bonds to purchase six new garbage trucks, 22,000 new trash and recycling bins and a public education campaign to promote the switch. Public works director Tim Gramling said he expects the service switch to be made sometime in the spring, perhaps as early as the first weeks of May. Since July, the city has been looking at automating the collection of trash as a way to save money on employee costs, equipment maintenance and workers' compensation insurance. Gramling at first wanted to have the switch completed by Jan. 1, but council reluctance to make the change led to a public awareness campaign that included a city-produced video and demonstrations at the SEMO District Fair and the Cape Girardeau Senior Center. The spending requires a final vote. Once that takes place at the council's Nov. 16 meeting, Gramling said he will place an order for the trucks. Under the terms of a $150,000 grant supporting the purchase, the trucks must be delivered to the city by April 30. The intervening time will be spent training sanitation workers to use the trucks so that the service change can be made as quickly as possible, Gramling said. "I would like to make it sooner than May if I can," Gramling said. Under the program, each home would receive two trash bins -- a 64-gallon container for regular garbage and a 96-gallon container for all recyclable materials except glass. The containers would be picked up by a truck with an automated arm, eliminating one job from every trash truck. The new program would replace the current system in which each home has two containers of up to 35 gallons each purchased by the resident, along with the recycling system that requires recyclable materials to be separated for collection. The council moved despite some concerns about whether the bins are too large for some people, especially the frail or elderly, to move about easily and concern over jobs. Councilman Charlie Herbst said he was glad the job cuts will result in the reassignment of employees but no layoffs. Mayor Jay Knudtson said he realizes some citizens are still reluctant to accept the change. "Change sometimes comes with a price, and it may be uncomfortable for a period of time, but we hope not." In other action, the council also approved hiring Alberici Constructors Inc. of St. Louis as construction manager for several park and storm-water projects currently underway. Alberici will monitor change orders and engineering compliance, city manager Scott Meyer said. 388-3642 Pertinent address: 401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, MO
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HOLY TOLEDO!
How many pick-ups per week? How about some real details?
I guess they city dosen't listen what about multi families or apts because my family as I said in the past we use 2 35 gallon tash cans total 70 gallons and we have to have special pickup so 64 gallons aint going to work for us and I bet there will be alot of complaints when it comes to it!
Our mayor doesn't give a rat's butt what we think.
How many days left til he's gone?
This is precisely the stuff that should be put to a referendum. The money we'd save in axing stupid City Council ideas would justify the costs of special elections alone.
I really doubt that this is Knutuson. This has Scott Meyer written all over it.
Seems to me as this has Tim Gramling written all over it. "Public works director Tim Gramling said he expects the service switch to be made sometime in the spring, perhaps as early as the first weeks of May." "'I would like to make it sooner than May if I can,' Gramling said."
But, I digress. The City of St. Louis not only has hills and a lot more frail and elderly people than Cape and I have never heard of a complaint regarding the Refuse Division and its containers. More than likely, you all are just afraid of leaving the status quo.
I am more interested in the last paragraph of the article.
"In other action, the council also approved hiring Alberici Constructors Inc. of St. Louis as construction manager for several park and storm-water projects currently underway."
Why doesn't the city have a staff of people to manage projects? Giving quality control to a contractor is not a wise choice.
"Alberici will monitor change orders and engineering compliance, city manager Scott Meyer said."
Monitoring change orders and engineering compliance is the job of the government, not a contractor.
Glad I live in the county. Have fun.
capeguy30, then perhaps it's time you tried to figure out how you can generate less trash!
I agree that at certain times of the year like during the holidays our own family has more trash than normal. However, the city takes this fact into consideration, and they allow customers to put out more garage ollowing the Christmas holiday. It would seem under this new program that you won't be able to have any extra trash. Maybe they'll consider adding an additional pick up day to address that particular problem.
I was unclear as to whether or not you live in an apartment, but if you don't you may wish to consider purchasing a trash compactor. We didn't have room for one in our home, but we keep one in the garage. They aren't that expensive, and it sure helps us make all the trash fit into our trash cans.
For those who do live in apartment, they have dumpsters for the most part, so they won't be affected at all.
What surprises me is that the trash can size overall will be less than what we have, but the recycling will be 96 gallons. Perhaps this is to motivate people to recycle, but I think people would be much happier with the change it if were the other way around.
I'm assuming all these new containers will be on wheels. If not, they city will have a whole new set of complaints!
Holy christ. Again, why are we hiring STL contractors?!?!? Can someone put a thumb on these idiots at city hall and make them accountable for their actions? I seriously doubt ANYONE from Cape Girardeau would condone using out of town workforce. Jay, you of ALL people shouldn't allow this. Very embarrassing.
wow! is the trash going to be dipped in gold before heading off to the dump? cha-ching...
There aren't any local contractors offering Construction Management services for a project of this magnitude. The city has most of their construcyion inspectors tied up on Mount Auburn and the Waterpark. A Construction Management services contract firm is the most economical solution in this situation. It is basically hiring temporary workers to perform the projects QA duties.
catfish you clearly missed the point on this. are you trying to say there isn't a firm in Cape/Jackson qualified to do this work? i could do this in my sleep.
More outsourcing. Dontcha just love it.
Seriously Scott, you don't have a P.E. in the Eng. Dept. that can monitor change orders and engineering compliance?
Really?
How can you generate less trash when you have 3 adults and a infant living in the house diapers take up alot of the trash can don't you think?
Thats what i said last month the 96 gallons should be for trash and 64 gallons for recycling
The new containers are only 64 gallons. We could have 2 - 35 gallon containers which together adds up to 70 gallons. Fewer gallons and probably more cost to us - eventually.
Dang capeguy. How many people in your family? Do you recycle?
capeguy,
What do you guys do all day to make 70 gallons of trash in a week? When I was a teenager, I lived in a house with 2 adults and another teen and we hardly ever filled one large bag. If you guys are filling it full of soda or beer cans, maybe you should think about recycling.
Besides, 70 gallons of trash in bags can easily be smashed into a 64 gallon can. If you tried real hard, you could probably get 3 full bags smashed in there.
Cities all over America have or are switching to this. You will figure out a way to make it work.
Every city I have lived in except Cape uses a system like this. It does a very good job and is very cost efficient!
I currently recycle my glass bottles. The new Trash and Recycle systems does not accomadate glass. Quote,
'Under the program, each home would receive two trash bins -- a 64-gallon container for regular garbage and a 96-gallon container for all recyclable materials except glass. The containers would be picked up by a truck with an automated arm, eliminating one job from every trash truck. The new program would replace the current system in which each home has two containers of up to 35 gallons each purchased by the resident, along with the recycling system that requires recyclable materials to be separated for collection.
What are we to do with the glass bottles? Go back to throwing it away? This would be a regression in recylcles and if people go back to throwing them away it will increase the amount of trash, and fill the lanfills sooner.
I guess our local government and Jay K. don't care about that at all.
I for one am very happy about the switch. I live in an apartment building with a dumpster. Each Saturday, I take my recycle load to the center. I am grateful to have it but from now on, I am going to be putting my stuff in my neighbors bin. I have their authorization to do so.
I hope they tested this on a sreet that is steep like mine. They picture shows them all standing around and watching on a level street and level driveway. What happens when the trash can tips over on a steep street/driveway and breaks my solar lights that I have lines my driveway with. Will the city pay for my damaged lights? Get ready for more calls on poor trash service! Before when they threw the cans on them they did not do too much damage, i had to stand the lights back up. I am sure a 65 gallon/ and the 96gallon can weigh more and will damage the lights. Sure I can move them, but they are there to outline the driveway! So you can see the driveway when you pull in off of the steep street, I have had people pull in and wind up in my yard, cause they can not see the driveway at night.
Centraloptimist, wow! I missed the part about glass. What are we supposed to do with it? I save some of my glass containers to wash and reuse, especially since we've been told that reusing certain plastics can be toxic. However, there are only so many spaghetti jars one needs!
I agree with KoH_Cliff, how can capeguy30 generate THAT much trash? One baby does not use an entire trash can. I had two in diapers at once, so I know! We currently have three adults in the household as well, and we use less than one trash can a week. As I said before, I keep a compactor in the garage, but one thing I don't do is recycle my plastics, so every bit of plastic I use is included in my one trash can. (The reason I don't recycle it is because I don't want to waste the water rinsing it and do not have a good place to keep dirty plastic items without the racoons getting into it and stringing it all over the yard as they look for something wonderful to eat.) So, if we can manage to have one trash can that also contains all of our plastic, surely you, capeguy30, can do something to reduce the trash you generate.
I am excited about the automated system because I do think it will be very cost effective given that a man will no longer have to take the time to remove the lids from my containers and throw them across my yard, then empty my containers and throw them across my yard. For every household that is four total to throw and two things total to lift. That's time-consuming. Now they'll just be lifting one and throwing two! Imagine all the man hours saved!
CentralOptimist,
Hey, here's a revelation. Continue to recycle your glass as you do now!!!!
Man, judging by some of your comments you'd think that some of you believe you are the only people in the US with trash. Christ... This has and continues to work in cities much larger, hillier and solar illuminated than our own.
I'm beginning to think this whole town is one big nursing home judging by the amount you guys b.itch about change
I am still open minded about the trash change. In the last month, the brilliant trash collector has destroyed both of my nice trash cans by throwing them on my driveway.
I don't know why we need curb side recycling in the first place. Why not go to a collection system like Columbia where there are drop off bins located in WalMart & grocery store parking lots. Easy, convenient, cheap.
I think they sell trash compactors at Sears and Lowes for those who may need one. Also, consider starting a compost pile. There are websites to show you how.
Glass can still be taken to the recycling center or they are supposed to implement drop offs through out the city for glass. They can just no longer pick it up due to contamination with single stream recycling.
I'm beginning to think this whole town is one big nursing home judging by the amount you guys b.itch about change
-- Posted by Producer1 on Tue, Nov 3, 2009, at 1:07 PM
We have a family of 4 and NEVER had more than two bags a week except for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Don't these lazy and wasteful people know the landfills are getting full?
Jackson has a pickup once a week and there are few complaints about it. Make the people pay double if they want to abuse the service.
BTW the water park will be a money maker.
Here's a tip: ask your kids' art teacher if they need items for crafts (Nesquick + baby wipe containers=crayon boxes, coffee creamer containers=Santa sculptures, glass baby food jars with lids=snow globes.) If the school doesn't need them, try the Scouts or an adult daycare, like the one at St. Vincent de Paul.
As for the recycling, let's try it and see how it works before we judge it.
What a bunch of whiners. Please find a real issue to cry about. I have a family of 5 (3 kids, 2 adults) and we barely fill our 32gal can.
Too bad for you. Either learn to manage your own waste or recycle a little.
I was recently in Jeff City and got caught behind the trash truck and was able to observe this system first hand in a hilly environment (Jeff City is much hillier than Cape). Looked like it worked just fine.
This system is meant to encourage recycling. I cut my trash in half when I started to recycle. This will be so much easier to throw things in the recycle bin than to separate it as must be done now.
When I was a kid I lived in a town where we burned our trash in a barrel in the back yard. What did not burn we took to the city dump. City employees worked at the dump burning the trash. The dump was located next to the river so every spring what was left was washed down the river. Now that was an efficient system...so long as you did not live down stream. People complained when they had to start paying for trash pick up. I don't think the people down stream complained.
Look at this number compared to the budget for city streets, as an example...this surpasses the dollars alloted to the upkeep of streets. Take a gander at the Cape city budget...it seems out of whack, when 70% of the revenue goes toward the city staff and personnel...meaning, the average citizen gets very little return on there tax dollars in the way of actual city services provided. Oh, unless you count the "gold plated" trash service. nice.
What kind of fee is Alberici walking away with? All in the praises of construction mis-management. I wonder if the City is buying those new dump trucks through Alberici Equipment...Anyone check that out???