By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
Joplin residents will have a chance today to tell the City Council what they think about the proposed change to a polycart trash pickup service.
Comments may be made during a public hearing scheduled for the council’s regular meeting at 6 p.m. on the fifth floor of City Hall, 602 S. Main St.
The city’s franchised hauler, Allied Waste, is proposing the change. Representatives of the company have said the system involves dumping the carts with automated trucks instead of having work crews manually empty trash cans.
It expedites pickup, results in less labor costs, and is safer for both residents and employees than handling trash bags that can contain sharp objects, representatives of Allied Waste have said. If the plan is approved by the council, residential customers would be issued one, 96-gallon wheeled cart at no cost that would be used for all refuse disposal except bulky items.
Joplin residents would no longer have to buy or maintain trash cans. The company would repair or replace broken carts. The cart holds the volume of three regular-sized trash cans. Residents who want more than one cart may rent an extra one for $5 a month, said Mary Anne Phillips, the city’s recycling coordinator.
Because the system involves the use of automated trucks that dump the polycart contents, Allied Waste would not pick up bags of trash or any trash left outside the cart, company representative Jennifer Fagan told the council in an earlier presentation.
Fagan said that although the company would buy the carts and the new trucks for the service, the change would not result in any increase in current rates beyond an annual increase that already exists in the company’s contract with the city.
Joplin’s residential trash pickup rate is $9.25 a month, which includes a 40-cent billing fee and a 15-cent management fee. Under the contract, the rate will go to $9.77, which includes the same fees, as of April 1.
Annual rate adjustments are based on the Consumer Price Index, which this year increased 5.9 percent, Phillips said earlier. If that index goes down, the monthly rate does not increase.
Fagan told the City Council that residents who are disabled will be assisted with their trash removal, as they are currently.
The polycart system already has been started in Carthage and Carl Junction, where residents and city officials say it has been generally well-received with a few problems reported. In Carthage, there have been some complaints from residents who live on hills and must maneuver the carts down stairs.
In Carl Junction, some seniors expressed concerns about the system until they learned there would be no rate hike related to the new service.
Residents of Seneca are waiting on carts to be delivered to start the system there.
Nancy Kirby, Seneca’s city collector, said officials at City Hall have been contacted by a number of residents expressing concerns.
“A lot of elderly people feel it’s an inconvenience,” Kirby said. “They have seen this enormous polycart, and they feel it might be difficult for them to move around. It’s overkill for them.”
But others in Seneca believe the new system will be better, Kirby said.
“For the most part, the average person with a family thinks it’s pretty neat,” she said.
Fagan told the City Council that a small cart could be issued to senior residents who cannot use the large one.
Trash pickup
If the proposed polycart system goes into effect, there would be no trash pickup in alleys because the new trucks are too big to travel the alleys. All pickup would be from the street.
