Our city used to provide trash pickup. They sold bags and you’d buy what you needed at the local stores for $2.20 each. Everyone was happy with the arrangement.

A few years back the city had to stop providing trash pickup. They took bids by private refuse companies and the one that won changed to selling stickers in packs of fixed numbers. It was best to buy the large pack as they were $2.07 each vs the small pack at $3.20 each. We had to buy a pack of stickers every quarter whether we needed one or not. People were actually fined and forced to buy the backlog of stickers they “owed”. No one was pleased with this arrangement. We usually had a large amount left over.

Well the same company won the bid again but they are changing back to selling packs of bags and come April the stickers won’t be valid any longer. The problem is, everyone has more stickers than they can use. I personally have 160 stickers to try to use before April. That’s about $330 worth of stickers. I use about 2 per week.

How would you handle it? I can’t imagine I’d be able to sell stickers as everyone has an abundance. I’ve done a general clean out of the basement and came up with 6 bags to put stickers on. I’ll do the garage next but it looks like I’ll be out around $290 by the end of the sticker era.

Any chance of contracting with another company? Or is this company the sole source for your trash removal?
Where I live we have at least 4 companies to contract with, you choose who you want or has the services you want to use.

So you have to use the provided bags and/or stickers for anything to be collected?
Definitely different than anything I've heard of.
We've always had a trash service provided rolling can, and they would only pick that up, outside of heavy trash pickup once a month.
Or, we have the option to buy a tag for non-canned trash pickup, from city hall, but that's the exception, not the norm.

quote:

Originally posted by McGregor:
Any chance of contracting with another company? Or is this company the sole source for your trash removal?
Where I live we have at least 4 companies to contract with, you choose who you want or has the services you want to use.

Only the bid winner is permitted to collect within the city. If we lived in one of the surrounding townships we could choose.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
So you have to use the provided bags and/or stickers for anything to be collected?

That is correct.

Since the city is contracting with this company, I'd ask the city manager how they dealt with the issue of stickers and how to convert them to bags in an exchange since the same company has accepted revenue from taxpayers for future services and is changing the methodology of funding collection.

I don’t know if you have the equivalent but we have City Councilmen here, they are voted and elected in every few years in each district.

I’ve had excellent results by phoning my City Councilman’s office and telling them. They’ve taken care of things quite well.

Best wishes to you.
.

HRK's idea sounds viable.
Some form of exchange, turn in your stickers for bags.

That's some sticker shock going on there.

That is not right. They sold those stickers and it accrued a liability on their books for services paid for. People need to complain to the city that they should make the company honor those stickers or give people a refund for unused ones.

This is "Okay, I'll sell you trash pick up services via these stickers and you can get a discount if you buy in volume." Then next month, "We're changing to tokens and those old stickers won't be good after next month."

Then month after that, "We're changing to sea shells and tokens won't be honored after the following month."

It's an outright rip-off.

Where I live, I'm surprised I have the choice of at least 3 garbage companies to pick up my trash. I'm used to San Francisco where there's only one company and it's been connected with the mob ever since.

Yes, I think a chat with the mayor or a city councilman is in order. I'm sure I'm not the only one affected.

quote:

Where I live, I'm surprised I have the choice of at least 3 garbage companies to pick up my trash. I'm used to San Francisco where there's only one company and it's been connected with the mob ever since.

When the Democrats took control of St. Louis County they took away our choice of trash hauler. Yep, contributions to politicians.
BUT, people threw a fit. Town halls and lots of negative press caused the to back off, sort of.

We negotiated an "opt-out" provision with the County. Our subdivision had a contract with an independent trash hauler and we were able to "opt-out" of the government monopoly contracted trash hauler. So, a few subdivisions that "opted-out" in time have a grandfathered permission to choose our own trash hauler.

Everyone else gets the government monopoly contracted trash hauler.

quote:

Everyone else gets the government monopoly contracted trash hauler.

The trashy side of my family has a long history here in St. Louis.


A friend of mine owns a business in St. Charles and purchased a villa about a mile from the business so he didn't have to make the drive all the way to his home if he didn't feel like it. St. Charles uses a contracted company and they dropped off a can one day. He called and told them to pick it up, as he didn't need it.

They explained that he had to have one. City contracts a hauler by ordinance, so they were the only company that could take his trash. He told them he had a dumpster at his business, and since he only stayed here a night or two each week he didn't make that much trash. The city got involved and told him he could not take his trash to his business, as he himself was not a licensed hauler. They explained that he would have a can and the associated bill whether he liked it or not.

He finally stumbled upon the solution. He called and told the hauler that he would need to suspend his service as he was going out of the country on business. He didn't know exactly how long he would be gone, but they told him to call when he returned to get the service restarted. He left, returned, and never called back. The hauler never followed up again, and he was able to remain without paid trash service until he sold the place a few years later.

The whole sticker/bag thing seems unusual to me, as it's never been done that way around here before. The typical arrangement is that you pay a monthly fee, and the truck comes by once a week and takes whatever you have set out (within reason).

If they won't do a credit swap put out the word that anyone cleaning out the house of deceased parent etc can talk to you regarding your surplus stickers?

Probably not a good idea, but any stickers that don’t get honored by the trash company could become city halls problem until someone changes their mind.

I really dislike the hodgepodge of trash services that PA has. My town lets you pick a trash/recycle service from whoever services the area and I’ve already fired one over poor service and price increases and the current one has been great.

My brother-in-law nearby is in the same situation as you, he’s at the mercy of the borough who changes the trash service every couple of years and sometimes they get a good one and sometimes they get a really shitty one.

Sounds to me like your beef should be with your municipal government. They're the ones that signed-on to the new contract that's screwing you.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Sounds to me like your beef should be with your municipal government. They're the ones that signed-on to the new contract that's screwing you.

Yeah. The new mayor has had a few issues like this.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I really dislike the hodgepodge of trash services that PA has. My town lets you pick a trash/recycle service from whoever services the area and I’ve already fired one over poor service and price increases and the current one has been great.

My brother-in-law nearby is in the same situation as you, he’s at the mercy of the borough who changes the trash service every couple of years and sometimes they get a good one and sometimes they get a really shitty one.

Yes, I wish we could choose our own service but they physically do not allow other reuse companies to conduct business in the city proper. It’s all back room deals but when you say that they tell you it was posted long in advance. It should have been posted on the last bill from the refuse company if they wanted transparency.

City have a FB page? Post about it, outline that the contract the city negotiated is potentially going to give the contractor a big windfall through the short deadline by not requiring them to honor paid for services via stickers.

That contractor has money they have accepted for future services, accounting wise they cannot take payments for future services as a profit until it's earned. They hold it in a reserve account, as soon as April 1 deadline hits, any unclaimed sticker money gets released from reserve and goes right to the bottom line.

They know this, and have probably done it before, it's why they want a hard deadline.

Otherwise, you could look for businesses in the area that use a lot of trash, or yard sales, estates etc and sell them at a discount to recover your costs.