By Chip Ross
The first reading of the city’s new agreement with Waste Management will be Tuesday, April 18, at the Fernandina Beach City Commission meeting, which begins at 6 p.m. at City Hall. The full agreement can be viewed by pressing the link below, which connects to Item 8.1 of the meeting agenda.
Beginning January 2024, the new contract will provide residential garbage pickup, recycling pickup and bulk pick up once a week. Previously pickup for garbage was twice a week.
Due to significant cost increases in fuel, new equipment and wages, there will be a price increase. The price agreed upon would have increased approximately 20% more if twice weekly garbage pickup service were maintained.
Additionally, with once-weekly service there will be significantly less truck traffic, less air pollution and less “trash can clutter” on city streets. Short-term rentals for extra service will be offered at an additional cost.
The contract does not affect the yard waste pickup currently provided separately by the city.
If you have any further questions or concerns please contact me at [email protected] or 410-394-0220.
I can live with this, restaurants will still be more frequent.
The bill should be reduced to half if the pick-ups are reduced to half.
After months of problems, and thousands of complaints, Port St. Lucie Florida, recently brought on a new waste hauler, but with a 50% increase in rates and a 50% reduction in collections. Drivers for trash haulers start at more than $80,000 per year plus benefits. Companies still cannot find enough drivers. I think the negotiated increased price with decreased frequency of service reflects the reality of the cost of providing trash removal today.
well, if you can find a waste hauler to bid at that price, please let us know.
Twice a week seems a luxury compared with most places. If the city can save money going to once a week, it makes sense.
Agree, except it would not be the city getting the savings it would be thousands of home owners. But if you don’t have other bidders you are stuck with what you got.
city residents are charged on our tax bill…I doubt there will be a trickle down effect of those savings to us. Same cost, less service. Based on their calculations our costs should reduce by 30% with the proposal. We will never see that
My concern would be for rentals that have more and frequent trash? Especially with tourists, not to mention the smell with the heat of the summer.
For our home, I am okay with the new agreement. Will we see a decrease?
Agree, in the past when there was discussion about once a week collection there was always a carve-out for the rental properties on Fletcher and First Ave to retain twice a week pick-up. It will be interesting to see if the rental owners pony up to the extra pickup or is there going to be overflow and litter from these properties, especially during the summer. Like commercial businesses, maybe those rental properties should be required to obtain twice a week garbage pickup.
The math does not add up – a 20% increase for the same service, or a 0% increase for reducing service by 50% (for residences). Seems like there should be a decrease in cost if reducing service by half.
Does this mean ONE truck each week will pickup garbage, recycle and bulk?
Looking forward to only having the trucks on the street one day a week. Thanks for working out the issues with short term rentals and other businesses.
Unlikely Susan that they will have the trucks for the entire city on just one day. What would those trucks and workers do the other four days? I suspect that different zones will have different pick-up days as in the past in order to distribute the workload. It is a long trip from FB to the landfill in GA so I am sure the vendor will work hard to minimize those number of trips due to the cost and travel time.
Once a week makes sense since we recycle. We never need more than once a week and often combine with the neighbors. Getting the trucks off our streets one day a week is a big win for the community. This proposal reduces the amount of increase from $15 to $8. Not bad considering inflation.
weird. One half the work for the same price? That actually seems like a 100% increase in the price.
It’s not one-half of the work. Are you going to reduce your garbage output by half? No, you are going to generate the same amount of garbage. So the garbage truck will fill up faster and necessitate more trips to the landfill in
One garbage pickup per week.
One recycle pickup per week.
One bulk pickup per week.
25% fewer residential pickups per week, but increased trips to the dump as Dave Lott mentioned.
I’m just not understanding this……
There will be a rat problem in FB soon
Waste management FREQUENTLY Missed one of their pick ups during the week at our house…what if they do the same when it’s down to once a week? Will I get the pleasure of trash sitting around for weeks at a time, meanwhile they collect money from my property tax bill all the same?!