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Friday, February 3, 2012
STORYLINE Water, Sewer, Drainage and Solid Waste Services in Sacramento
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Following the Rules of Containerized Yard Waste can Benefit Everyone
by Jessica Hess, published on April 26, 2010 at 12:21 PM
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The City of Sacramento Department of Utilities is reminding residents of the rules of its Containerized Yard Waste Program. When participating residents do their part, it helps to keep City costs down, keep streets cleaner, frees up parking, limits clogged storm drains, and vector problems, such as mosquito growth.
The Containerized Yard Waste Program’s rules are:
□ Yard waste consists of leaves, fruit and other organic matter commonly found in a yard. It does not include pet waste, concrete, or fencing materials.
□ All yard waste must fit in the container for collection.
□ Customers may put waste loose-in-the-street for collection eight times per year. These include Christmas tree pick-up, leaf season and pruning season. A calendar of the eight weeks that yard waste may be placed loose-in-the-street for collection can be found at www.cityofsacramento.org/utilities.
□ Residents who do not wish to participate in the program need to call 311 to opt out of the program.
□ While the Program is voluntary, customers who have a container and who place waste on the street for collection when it is not allowed will be contacted by the Department of Utilities and provided education and an opportunity to continue in the program.
The City is currently picking-up piles of inappropriately discarded yard waste. The City is not picking up newly placed piles from containerized customers. The next loose-in-the-street collection for containerized customers is the last collection day in May, beginning May 25, 2010.
“Unfortunately, we have many residents who still have a hard time understanding this program,” says Edison Hicks, Integrated Waste General Manager for the City of Sacramento Department of Utilities. “When customers participate correctly, it helps to keep the neighborhood neat, provides for more efficient collection of waste and limits clogged storm drains, mosquito growth habitat and storm water pollution; it also helps to keep the City’s costs in check.
The City’s Containerized Yard Waste program is voluntary and offers residents the ability to utilize a container for the weekly collection of yard waste. Residents who participate in this program currently receive a 23% discount on their monthly yard waste collection bill.
If a resident in the program is not participating correctly, Department of Utilities’ staff will make contact with the resident to remind them of the rules of the program. Residents who wish to opt-out of the program should call 3-1-1 or email 311@cityofsacramento.org.
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Then two months ago, with no notice, they suddenly started following their own rules about who would get loose-in-the-street pickup. For six weeks my pile kept getting bigger and bigger until I finally complained and I was told that their records showed that I had a can so they were skipping me. It took them two more weeks, while a supervisor came out to verify that I did not indeed have a can, until they finally got around to picking up my pile. All that time I'm paying for a service that I'm not receiving, kind of like the street cleaning that never seems to happen.
Also, if you haven't called 3-1-1 to opt out of the voluntary program, we will still have you listed as containerized so your pile was skipped because according to our records, it should be in the can. Again, just call or email 311@cityofsacramento.org to opt out of the program. You will instantly be placed on the opt out list (even if it takes us awhile to actually get the can) and your pile will be collected the next time the claw is in the area.
If you have mature trees and shrubbery, cutting down your prunings to fit in a can requires 2 to 3 times the effort of being able to place prunings loose in the street. Trying to match the weekends you have time available to do yard pruning with the city's loose pick up schedule it not always possible.
I would be interested in the cost benefit analysis that was conducted for the proposal to switch to containers. I estimate the cost of the containers alone at somewhere around $7 million. It also now appears the the city has also purchased new specialized yard waste trucks with front and rear bins. The only equipment partiallty eliminated was the claw and those still need to held and maintained for the scheduled loose pick up so how much cost savings could there be. I would have gladly approved several dollars in increased in yard waste collection fee if the City could demonstrate it was necessary to keep the loose pick up service running as smoothly as it did in the previous decades.
The evidence I've seen so far, indicates the City made a huge mistake by adopting this program and ignored decades of evidence showing loose pick up was working adequately. They should have spent a fraction of the money educating the small number of citizens who were not following the rules for loose pick up and left the containers with whichever bureaucrats brother-in-law they bought them from.