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Tuesday, February 08, 2000 Page: 6A
Judging by the numbers Mayor Thomas McGroarty presented to the City Council
last weekend, the question is not whether Wilkes-Barre should privatize
garbage collection, but how and when.
If the mayor’s figures are accurate, the city, by contracting with a
private hauler, could save more than $1 million per year, reduce its workforce
through early retirement and attrition, maintain the current level of service
and hold down the cost to residents.
In the alternative, the city could preserve the current system and double
residents’ per-bag fee to $2.50 in order to close the program’s $1.3 million
deficit, meaning a household that leaves just one bag per week at the curb
would spend $130 per year.
Compared to that, a nine-year private contract with an initial $100 annual
fee per household doesn’t look so bad.
The city is not going off into uncharted territory here. Many
municipalities in Northeastern Pennsylvania already depend on private haulers
for trash collection. We advise Mayor McGroarty and council members to confer
with leaders in those towns as they debate privatization and formulate the
specifics of a hauling contract.
The city should consider including recycling pick-up in any proposed
private trash contract, as several local municipalities already do. That might
save more money and protect the city from notoriously volatile fluctuations in
the prices paid for recyclables.
We believe the mayor should also reconsider his inclination to preserve the
system under which residents must buy city-issued garbage bags even if a
private hauler is contracted. Council members have argued the system
encourages residents to separate recyclables in order to minimize the number
of bags they use.
Instead, the city should weigh a system in which the annual fee would
entitle each household to put out two bags – any type of bags – per week, with
a city-issued bag required for a third and any subsequent bags. Such a system,
already employed in the Back Mountain, would minimize the city’s costs for
ordering and storing bags and delivering them to retailers.
The city can draw upon a well of experience in our region and in other
parts of the state before designing a privatized trash pick-up program.
The mayor and council should take advantage of that experience and come up
with a strong proposal, and a detailed framework for privatization.