Blue Bag Survey: Questions About Residents Having to Pay for Curb Side

[A Zalace]

A lot of people have been wondering why the recycling survey that is going around is asking residents if they are willing to pay for curb side service. The question I have heard the most is why can't the county pay for the service. Here is the answer directly from Commissioner Meadows.

Arix:​

The cost may/may not actually be passed on to the taxpayer on their tax bill. I'm working with Bill Imfeld, our Finance Director, on this. Adding a recycling curbside pickup to the existing budget would cost in excess of $1.0 million at a time when state budget cuts will take another +/- 1.5 million out of the '08-'09 budget. The County now pays $7 million for regular garbage and yard debris pickup. One of the reasons for the survey was to see if people would pay the extra amount themselves. Thanks for all your help. Sorry I missed your news debut.​

Cindy​

 

[wrobert]

will take another +/- 1.5 million out of the '08-'09 budget. The County now pays $7 million for regular garbage and yard debris pickup. One of the reasons for the survey was to see if

Now the question is how much revenue does the 1 percent surtax generate to the county every year.

 

[NotDeadYet]

Now the question is how much revenue does the 1 percent surtax generate to the county every year.

That is one good question.

Another would be, how would that extra million be spent? Would it add a whole other separate run? On another thread, SJ suggested compartmentalzing the trucks so recycling could be picked up along with the regular trash and kept separate. Is this feasible? What would that cost? Another suggestion was to keep two weekly pickups but make one for recycling and one for regular trash. Is this feasible and what would it cost?

I don't think I would be in favor of adding a third weekly run even if the county could pay for it out of the 1% sales tax. Seems like all those added fuel miles sort of defeat the purpose of recycling, which is to save resources, I thought.

 

[hnooe]

Anything with the name "Blue" in a thread is the kiss of death around here!

 

[A Zalace]

Now the question is how much revenue does the 1 percent surtax generate to the county every year.

I am assuming you are talking about the 1% bed tax? The TDC (tourist development council) gets all of that money. They use it for beach renourishment, beach walkovers, enormous blue signs, and who knows what else. They are a seperate entity from the district offices.

 

[A Zalace]

That is one good question.

Another would be, how would that extra million be spent? Would it add a whole other separate run? On another thread, SJ suggested compartmentalzing the trucks so recycling could be picked up along with the regular trash and kept separate. Is this feasible? What would that cost? Another suggestion was to keep two weekly pickups but make one for recycling and one for regular trash. Is this feasible and what would it cost?

I don't think I would be in favor of adding a third weekly run even if the county could pay for it out of the 1% sales tax. Seems like all those added fuel miles sort of defeat the purpose of recycling, which is to save resources, I thought.

There would be another run added. Compartmentalizing the trucks is an excellent idea, and one that I have brought up numerous times in our meetings. This is something that will probably happen in the future, but right now it would take an incredible sum of money. We spoke with Rory Cassidy, regional manager of Waste Management, and he said that they would have to purchase an entirely new fleet of trucks. If this were the case, the county would have to re-negotiate its contract with Waste Management. A lot of the truck costs would be passed on to the county in the re-negotiations. We are talking about a lot of money.

We also discussed turning one of the weekly pick ups into a blue bag pick up day. This is just not possible with the amount of garbage produced in our county. I encourage anyone to go visit the landfill and you will be amazed by how much waste is produced in Walton county. The waste stream almost doubles in the summer. The resorts and rental agencies depend on two trash pickups each week.
Your question about saving resources versus adding another pick up day is a good one. Studies have shown that far less resources are used when a curbside program is in place. These programs eliminate the need for residents who recycle to drive seperate cars to collection bins. These studies also show that curbside programs greatly increase the number of people who recycle.
One last point I would like to address is whether the county really recycles materials once they reach the landfill. I have heard a lot of people say that "they just throw the recyclables in the landfill once they get up there". Recycling is not as easy as everyone thinks that it is. I was surprised to learn how complex it really is. The landfill has to find buyers for all of the recyclables that are collected. Since Walton County is off the beaten path, this can be a difficult task. Some months selling plastic is easy, while other months they can not give it away. What the county can sell also changes from month to month. When we started the blue bag program, the paper buyer only wanted raw paper. Now they will take varnished and glossy paper. The guys at the landfill are doing an amazing job with what they have. They collect the recyclable materials and store them if they can not find a buyer right away. Since the facility is so old, from time to time they begin to run out of room when no buyers are available. In such cases some materials have to go to the landfill, but this is a last resort. The county is in the process of designing a new landfill facility which will include a state of the art recycling facility. We are working very hard to make the process work. A lot of people think of recycling programs that they have seen in cities when questioning recycling in Walton County. It's an entirely different ball of wax here. You can find buyers for practically anything in and around cities.

 

[NotDeadYet]

AZalace, thanks for a very interesting reply.
WaltonGOP can speak for himself, but I believe he was referring to the 1% sales tax that is used for landfill operations in Walton County and which pays for the current Waste Management pickups. The county decided quite a few years ago to fund trash services with the optional local 1% sales tax allowed by law. The old system it replaced required a quarterly payment to Waste Management by each individual/business, which got you a sticker to place on your trash can, which got your can emptied when the truck came around. If someone didn't pay and had no sticker or an out of date sticker, their trash just piled up. Since tourists spend money while here, that is one of the reasons the county went to the present system, to spread around the cost of hauling off all the trash left behind by the tourists. This way everyone's cans get emptied. So WaltonGOP is asking, and I am very curious also, how much revenue that 1% sales tax generates. There is another thread on here somewhere about recycling, and another poster contacted the county finance director and got what is not exactly a definitive, transparent reply. When you get into the budget in this county, you soon find out it is sort of like a game of "hide the peanut." Just ask anyone from the taxpayer's association about the years they have spent trying to reform the budget process so that citizens can get clear answers to questions like this one.
I applaud your efforts to help the county move along with this problem. I do wish you had come along years ago, or that the county had had some forward looking thinkers then instead of, once again, finding themselves in a reactive mode and behind the curve. I would think that aluminum would not be a problem to sell. It almost pays me to drive cans up to Freeport these days, if I have enough. I can understand the issues with paper, glass and plastic and fluctuating needs of the buyers, but with the proximity of the landfill to Interstate 10 and all the recyclers that are located in Pensacola, I think you might want to take the difficulties with a grain of salt. I do believe as resources of all kinds grow increasingly scarce that recycling is not only important but it will be more efficient as well.

 

[GoodWitch58]

I would like to see an accounting of what the sales tax has generated, and what it has been spent for...also, I would like to know if the County has gotten bids from other companies for the garbage collection and recycling pick up...

 

[wrobert]

I am assuming you are talking about the 1% bed tax? The TDC (tourist development council) gets all of that money. They use it for beach renourishment, beach walkovers, enormous blue signs, and who knows what else. They are a seperate entity from the district offices.

I would have said bed tax. Surtax is the extra 1% sales tax that everone pays in Walton County.

 

[A Zalace]

I would like to see an accounting of what the sales tax has generated, and what it has been spent for...also, I would like to know if the County has gotten bids from other companies for the garbage collection and recycling pick up...

I will see what I can find out about this. The county has gotten bids from other companies, and Waste Management is the cheapest as far as South Walton is concerned. North Walton uses a company called DayCo (not 100% sure on the name). We got bids from them for recycling pick up and it was more than double that of Waste Management's bid.