All Independent Business Must Be Squashed
By Mitch Berg
There’s a war brewing in the Twin Cities metro.
It’s about trash.
About 2/3 of the communities in the Twin Cities allow or require (depending on your point of view) residents to contract their own garbage hauling. Saint Paul is one of them.
The rest either run it as a city service, or contract out pieces of the city to private haulers. Minneapolis treats trash as a city service.
And at all levels governments, lobbing shots about “street repair” and “the environment”, are trying to grab that turf:
When Bill and Mary Simms got a bill for $1,800 to fix the street outside their home, they knew whom to blame — all those garbage trucks.Each week, at least five trucks rumble past to collect trash in their Fridley neighborhood. They show up as early as 6:40 a.m., waking the retirees.Bill Simms, 67, doesn’t understand why his community needs so many haulers when people in next-door Columbia Heights get by with just one. And he’s furious he has to pay to fix streets worn down by all that tonnage. “I’m fed up,” Simms said.It’s a common complaint in the Twin Cities, where most communities leave it to residents to hire their own trash collectors. In St. Paul, which is served by 17 haulers, officials could vote on changes this month.
Of course, if you read between the lines, the media is in the bag for the idea of socialized trash:
Many homeowners prefer to pick their own haulers, believing that they’re getting the best rate. But they’re wrong, a study commissioned by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) concluded.For a 30- or 60-gallon container, those homeowners typically pay at least 50 percent more for garbage service than residents in communities like Minneapolis with organized systems, the study found.
As the Strib piece notes, private haulers charge a very wide range of rates – from double MInneapolis’ rates per month, down to well below what Minneapolitans pay.
It takes just a little work – like, calling a few of the 17 trash haulers that serve Saint Paul, and asking them what they charge.
Which is just too much for some of your hope-and-change-addled neighbors (emphasis added):
“No one has the time to research all the different companies,” said Shannon Forney, who moved to St. Paul last month. “Having that much choice is actually a burden.”
I sat for a moment, dumbfounded, when I read that. If there’s ever been a better mnemonic to separate a Minneapolis/Saint Paul DFLer from the rest of society, that’d be it.
There are other costs, too. City engineers worry about the price of fixing roads damaged by garbage and recycling trucks. Residents complain about the racket, the danger to children, and the emissions.
This is of course nothing but a push to land more unionized government jobs.
Thankfully, some people get it. People were getting angry about trash long before we had tea parties:
But anytime officials talk about change, they confront angry constituents. Not one community has retaken control of trash collection in nearly 20 years, according to the MPCA study.
Mark Campbell, mayor of Sauk Rapids, was stunned when local officials debated how to reduce the number of garbage trucks on city streets last spring. He said it was the “ugliest meeting I’ve ever participated in.”
And as the honeymoon ends for Hope and Change, let’s hope it gets “uglier” – where “ugly”=”citizens actually exercising their first amendment right to tell government what pier to jump off of”.
I’m going to try to find the MPCA study and the Minneapolis trash budget, and see if I can answer the questions the Strib didn’t.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:05 am
Single payer waste disposal?
“No one has the time to research all the different companies,” said Shannon Forney, who moved to St. Paul last month. “Having that much choice is actually a burden.”
It’s called letting your fingers do the walking. If she thinks getting price quotes over the phone qualifies as research, then she’s a typical “let government solve my problems” moonbat.
When Bill and Mary Simms got a bill for $1,800 to fix the street outside their home, they knew whom to blame — all those garbage trucks.
Where is the proof?
One one hand, from an effeciency standpoint, it makes sense for a one truck (or two if they get recycling) go down a street to pick up trash once a week. (But of course, there is nothing in place to ensure that the ecomies of scale are passsed down to the consumer.) It also cuts down on the freeloader – those who pass their garbage off to someone else’s dumpster, or throw in by the side of the road.
On the other hand, letting the city (or a homeowners association) pick a hauler takes away the power of the consumer, and reduces competition based on price and service. It keeps start-ups and the smaller companies from entering the market.
I’ve had good experience when I’ve been able to pick my hauler. I know I’m paying a fair market rate and I can address any service issues as a customer who pays the gargabe hauler directly. Several years ago, I had a commercial account with company A where the price jumped from about $100 a month to $110 a month. Company A also served almost all the other businesses in the area.
Using the yellow pages, I was able to find service with company B for $65/month. When I called to cancel service with company A, they offered to meet the $65/month rate. I stuck with my decision to go with company B. I was able to save over $500 a year, something I wouldn’t have been able to do if the government was making the decision for me.
October 8th, 2009 at 8:13 am
Everybody blames garbage trucks because they’re visible and for-profit, so it must be their fault. Garbage trucks operate once a week.
Talk to a civil engineer sometime. Busses cause as much damage to streets as garbage trucks. But they operate in the public’s blind spot. Nobody notices a city bus or a school bus driving the exact same route every single day, sometimes several trips a day. That causes damage on a far greater scale and anything the garbage haulers could do.
Notice how the right-hand lane is always beat to death long before the left lane? Busses. But nobody mentions them. They’re invisible.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:03 am
My neighbors and I got together and picked a common vendor, and got a discount on top of it. Now a single truck goes through once a week and does the whole neighborhood. More efficient for everybody and we get a price break. But of course we did it without government intervention, so it’s not acceptable. 🙁
October 8th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Alas, Minneapolis’ garbage hauling situation is a wee bit more complicated than “single payer” would have you believe. Yes we pay the city and the city contracts with a consortium of, I believe, 12-15 haulers. The largest of which is Waste Management (the big Green Trucks, a national company) but a bunch of which are smaller and local.
There was talk of switching to one single provider last year, a “greener” provider supposedly. Mysteriously at the 11th hour some new info came to light that they used non-union labor. Mpls then re-upped with the consortium.
As for the practical question of multiple trucks rumbling through the alley: We still have that problem because we get as many as 3 pickups on trash day. One for recycling (every other week), one for yard waste and one for trash. And there’s possibly another one the day after for “large items.” And although you’d think that the consortium would have a permanent schedule worked out, it obviously doesn’t because we see different trucks every trash day, some of which don’t even do the pickup on our block. Very often trucks will just drive straight through the alley. Which means they are lost, confused about where they are supposed to be or maybe don’t have contiguous routes.
In any event, I don’t think our system saves the roads all that much wear and tear.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:36 am
In a free market, you don’t necessarily have to let your fingers do the walking: often the business comes to you. Years ago we selected a trash hauler after doing some cost comparison. The service was fine; pick-ups as expected, no spills – really, it’s a pretty low bar for customer satisfaction. Then another company called us, offered us a lower rate and a larger barrel. We checked that they were reputable and then took them up on their offer (as with Right, the original vendor offered to meet the price). They’ve also been great about scheduling the occasional extra pick-up when we needed it.
Now let’s say it’s city-awarded contract and I want some extra service or a lower rate. Heh. I’ll be told “it’s for the children”, that I ought to be grateful there’s service at all, and that I really ought to be consuming less anyway. And, by the way, they’re going on strike next week.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Oh, and it’s hard to compare rates exactly because you have to look at services. Minneapolis includes unlimited recycling for standard items, every other week and we get a lot of it. You can even recycle electronics on a regular recycling day (computers and the like), which judging from the popularity of those big electronics recycling events, not every city does.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Margaret – the big question is does Mpls city trash operate at a profit, neutral, or deficit?
October 8th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Having recently lived in a city with a monopoly garbage service and now living in one with open competition, I can say the latter is much better from a consumer point of view. There’s more to it than simply the rate they charge for weekly pickup. The monopoly hauler used to gouge us for every extra dime they could. Anything that they considered to be “unusual” trash would not be taken without an additional charge. If you had anything that even stuck out of the can, they wouldn’t take it.
Someone dumped a used mattress in our alley. I moved it out of the way so cars could get by and leaned it against our garage. I called the city to get it picked up and was told that we had to pay for it. When I complained, they asked if I had seen the person who dumped it or might have an idea who it was. No, but let’s call the police and have them start an investigation. Eventually we did pay to have it picked up. Had I been less civic minded, I would have left in the alley or dragged it across to my neighbor’s and made it their problem. That’s more an issue with the city than the hauler, but it was typical of the crappy customer service we received.
Now, we have a hauler who takes almost anything within reasonable bounds. They also pick up yard waste every week during the season for a moderate additional charge. Best of all, if they don’t perform I can always switch.
By the way, I don’t understand what “danger to children” garbage trucks pose. They’re loud, they drive slow, and they’re easy to see. I would bet that kids are far more likely to get hit by cars than by garbage trucks. Besides my kids love to watch ’em in action so I say the more the merrier.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Jeebus. On the Big Island we just haul whatever we got down to a transfer station and dump it in a compacter-trailer. No charge, no separating recyclables. It all goes into the landfill.
Your government has you trained pretty good in Minnesota. Ever seen a real study on the cost effectiveness of recycling vs making another landfill?
October 8th, 2009 at 11:49 am
, I don’t understand what “danger to children” garbage trucks pose.
And if, heaven forfend, a truck harms you kids, who do you think is gonna be easier to sue – a private or government entity?
Ever seen a real study on the cost effectiveness of recycling vs making another landfill?
Penn & Teller’s Bulls**t covered the issue pretty capably.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Liberals believe that when people choose a cheaper product over a more expensive product it’s a ‘marketplace failure’ lol!
October 8th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
The story is like an episode of the Sopranos; and the Strib is the front man for Tony.
October 8th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
An elderly woman, not a kid, was run down by a garbage truck in St. Paul this year, very early in the morning.
I have trouble applying the bus analogy to garbage hauling. Do buses wear down roads, sure. But not as much as they would if everyone hired their own bus company and 10 times the buses served the same routes.
I also don’t see where wanting to reduce truck traffic in your neighborhood is a partisan political issue. I’m all for competition, but running 15 different big trucks down a residential street is insane.
October 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Penn & Teller’s Bulls**t covered the issue pretty capably.
I know what your referring to Mitch and I believe that they also said the vast majority of recycling ends up in a landfill anyway. A teacher at Normandale was pissed when she saw me throw a 20 oz pop bottle in the garbage. I said “its going to end up in a landfill anyway I’m just shortening the process” needless to say she was pissed but not pissed enough to fish it out. Enviroweenies are such losers
October 8th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Was someone driving that garbage truck Charlie? Or did we have a Stephen King story come to life in St. Paul? And “run down” makes it sound intentional. The next time a ped gets hit on the light rail line will we see the headline “Man Run Down By Train”?
October 8th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
It is a sign that our public debate on these issues is controlled by one side of the dispute that you rarely hear any mainstream criticism of the industrial-government recycling complex. How many man-hours are lost to the nation because citizens are sorting their household waste?
In my state, Hawaii, energy costs are very, very high — more than 40 cents kwh for electrical power and almost $4/gallon for diesel. Recycling is energy intensive. There is no aluminum smelter in this state that can reprocess recyclable cans. The cans are crushed, baled, and sent to the mainland (or maybe some 3rd world hell hole) for recycling. Ditto plastic bottles. Hawaiizerowaste.org, a website run by Hawaii’s Dept. of Environmental Management, says only some glass products are recycled locally. All the rest goes on a diesel-spewing ship and is shipped thousands of miles away. If it is sent to mainland port (most of it goes to the West coast, I believe) it is loaded and unloaded by union dockworkers and the transports are manned by unionized merchant seamen.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Chad,
Okay, a woman died because she was hit by a truck driven by a human being working under this garbage-hauling system. Does this mean kids are endangered? Maybe not a ton, but reasonable people might consider this a dangerous set of conditions:
1) Garbage haulers generally don’t hire the cream of the crop. My friend the probation officer says a majority of her clients who have jobs are either roofers or garbage haulers.
2) Oversized vehicles don’t have the greatest sight lines.
3) The collection system encourages vehicles to race through streets to complete spread out routes.
October 8th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I lived in Robbinsdale when they switched from private to city-run collection. Whatever promises were made, it wasn’t long before we were told we needed to pay another $1 a bag above 2. We even had to go to City Hall to buy stickers with a big Robin on them.
In what may have been the real purpose all along, I traced back two frivolous code violations (your garage paint is starting to peel!) to my new city hauler. They would not confirm or deny whether such a duty is in their job description, whether he was rewarded, encouraged, etc. The silence said it all, and I swore then that I would not buy my next house or any other property in Robbinsdale.
October 8th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Charlie-
You’re making suppositions with little to back them up. If there were only one hauler in the city would they get better drivers? How many people have been killed by garbage trucks in cities with monopoly haulers? If the collection system is indeed causing drivers to “race through the streets” I’m sure writing a few tickets and fining the companies would correct the situation.
I agree that this isn’t necessarily a left/right political issue.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Chad:
You’re making suppositions about my suppositions. My comments have nothing to do with monopolies or city vs. private. It’s about the math. Putting 10 big trucks on residential streets instead of three increases risk, wear and tear, and eventual costs that don’t show up in the trash service line.
Mitch’s post and the comments are based on a string of suppositions as well.
1) That Minneapolis has city monopoly on service (it isn’t, though I agree it isn’t consumer-determined choice). 2) That it’s foregone St. Paul will move to a city-run service. 3) That anyone (probably hope and changers all) who thinks that the current system might be improved therefore favors a “monopoly.”
For the record, I favor competition. My own trash is hauled by a small, independent company that I selected. I don’t think haulers have to be unionized, but they should have the right to organize.
Is St. Paul, with its fiscal challenges, going to get into the garbage business all of a sudden? Doubtful. But could it divide the city into zones, invite companies to bid for the right to provide service in each, and then select three to compete in each zone?
October 9th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Charlie, curious about how your city finances its streets?
In St. Paul, I pay property taxes based on the value of the house but those do NOT go for streets. Instead, I pay a special assessment for street maintenance ($187); another special assessment for curb and gutter maintenance (67.84); another special assessment for recycling service ($27.04); and another special assessment for alley maintenance but not snow plowing, that’s the homeowner’s responsiblity ($50).
The annual special assessments come to well over $300 and that’s every single year, whether or not they do any work on the street in front of my house (which they have not in the 10 years I’ve lived in St. Paul. That’s a fair chunk of money gathering dust somewhere.
So when the garbage trucks, city busses and school busses beat up my streets, I’ve already paid for the repairs. So why should I give up my garbage hauler?
Also, why force widows to subsidize families? The Widow Johnson (two doors East of me) lives on Social Security. She generates about one pint of trash a month. The Vang family (three doors West of me) has 5 kids. They generate half a ton of garbage a week. Presently, each pays their own way . . . a “user fee” if you will. Under standardized garbage collection, everybody pays the same. Johnson subsidizes Vang. Why?
October 9th, 2009 at 10:40 am
When Bill and Mary Simms got a bill for $1,800 to fix the street outside their home, they knew whom to blame — all those garbage trucks.
Bill and Mary Simms, like a lot of the rest of the public, are sadly misinformed. Garbage trucks don’t wreck streets. Water trickling down into the cracks when it is mid 30s during the day and freezing (and expanding) overnight. wrecks the streets. There are lots of stretches of Southern California interstate that still have the original concrete that was laid 40-50 years ago. They don’t have water freezing to ice to break up their pavement/concrete.
October 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Oh, and we pay $11/mo for a 95 gallon container, as part of a “hey, new customer, subscribe to our service for cheap for 2 years” plan. Next summer, we’ll use the coupon given to us by some guy that knocked on our door this spring advertising the exact same service from a different company, and understood when we told him we were in a 2 year contract. He said to call them up when our contract expires and the new company would sign us up for another 2 years at basically the same rate.
October 25th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
[…] Strib editorial which, as I predicted (but didn’t write) yesterday, follows immediately on a story from yesterday that seemed to try to make the case for govenrment takeover of city trash […]
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
[…] All independent business must be squashed, Shot in the Dark […]