Trash collection sign of downtown success

Success always comes at a price, as the Town of Berlin is discovering with the demand for commercial trash collection now outstripping the town’s ability to deliver it.

According to Public Works Director Jimmy Charles, his waste disposal crews are struggling to keep downtown bins and containers from overflowing between the two rounds of trash pickup the department provides.

These efforts to keep waste stations free of refuse aren’t just taking a toll on department personnel, he said, but are costing the town money because businesses are paying about half of what they should for the service.

As Charles told the mayor and council this week, businesses sharing trash containers downtown pay for one pick-up a week but get two. That’s because the groupings of the bins quickly become too unsightly to ignore, as business activity continues to grow.

Charles believes the best solution would be to require businesses to engage a private hauler to do the job and restrict the town’s trash collection services to residential only. It’s either going to be that or the businesses that are depending on the town’s trash collection services will have to pay for what they’re getting.

Charging for that second pick-up does make sense, too, assuming that it produces a rate that covers the department’s costs. It’s still likely to be less than a private hauler would charge.

In addition, if public works restricts its trash collection to residential services, it locks itself into a slow-growth situation, when the costs of personnel, materials, and equipment continue to rise.

Instituting that additional charge for the second business pick-up, however, allows the department to grow with business to meet the demand, while leaving residential taxpayers unaffected.

Businesses may not go for the second charge and prefer to contract with a private hauler, and that’s fine too. Either way, it does lighten the load on the crew.