How Is City Hall "Saving" Money On Recycling?

[marklingm]

At taxpayer expense, City Hall posted and tweeted:

Saving money and protecting our planet. Your city, hard at work. #1LKWD -cbm

I'm still trying to figure out how City Hall is saving money if more tax dollars need to be spent to save any money?

This appears to be, as with most City Hall "savings," nothing more than a shell game.

City Hall must have a balanced budget.

Spending more on one thing simply means spending less on another thing.

What services are residents losing so that City Hall can try to save money by spending more tax dollars to maybe save money in the future?

[Bill Burnett]

The Mayor says the city pays $42 a ton for landfill fees. The city receives $27 a ton for recycling. Simple logic will tell you that getting paid $27 is better than paying $42

[marklingm]

The Mayor says the city pays $42 a ton for landfill fees. The city receives $27 a ton for recycling. Simple logic will tell you that getting paid $27 is better than paying $42

I hear what you are saying, Bill.

But, assuming that the Mayor is correct, that does not include any operating expenses.

Doesn't Colin's video address that?

It is not improbable that paying $42 a ton for landfill fees is actually cheaper than all the costs necessary to be actually be paid $27 a ton.

A dairy farmer used to pay $42 for a steak at the best restaurant in town but, after investing $1.5 million to run his own beef company, he was actually getting paid $27 per steak. His family is now starving because they spent all their money and mortgaged the farm away. But they are getting $27 per steak!

In any event, my take from Colin's video, assuming that the Mayor is correct, is that City Hall is not even close to paying off the cost of the recycling program … even after being paid $27 a ton.

Hey, I could be wrong.

As an aside, I also like how City Hall states in Colin's video that they anticipated the problems associated with the recycling program prior to implementation.

So, why not address the problems prior to implementation?

Fixing the problems now may only cost more taxpayer money … which may eat away at that $27 a ton.

Matt

[Jim O'Bryan]

The Mayor says the city pays $42 a ton for landfill fees. The city receives $27 a ton for recycling. Simple logic will tell you that getting paid $27 is better than paying $42

Bill

In most instances the city would be paying $27 a ton for recycled trash that $42 a ton.
Recycled trash is not high demand, nor is it high use. Most people still tend to share away
from recycled paper, plastics, etc. Also the cost of recycling most things outside of plastic
bottles and aluminum cans is higher than using virgin materials. I cannot honestly believe it
is a $69 swing to the plus. Maybe we save $27 a ton with recycled goods.*

However Matt's point and a valid one is. The city told us we would save $43,000 a year with
automated trash pick up. The equipment to switch was over $1.5 million dollars, trucks,
cans, etc. Well that would indicate a savings in 29 years. Then it was mentioned, there
would be an additional bump through retirement of another $40,000 a year. This would
take it to 15 years to break even.

HOWEVER we added the smaller than most cities recycling barrels.** At a cost they said
was the same as the green barrels, so $740,000 is added to the final figure and adds a
total of 10 years to the break even date.

This city has fallen into the "Blondie" trap, and fallen in head first.



Bragging of $400,000 in new meters, in an area that just got new meters, but we got
25% off with this grant! What a savings!!!!

"We just got this helicopter drone, it will save us boat rentals." Ahh you never rented a boat,
"I mean it will stop us from climbing the cliffs" errrr you have never climbed the cliffs. "It
saves us from being bored and we wanted it to check out the swimming pools in the summer!

* Many cities use "recycle collectors" that haul the trash away, yet it has been proven, it
is never recycled. The infamous trash island the size of Texas is thought to be mainly the
result of Chinese freighter that are being paid to take "recyclable trash back to China for
sorting, and dumping it in the middle of the ocen so that when they get back to port they
are empty. No matter it allows the city to say with a straight face, "we recycle."

** When I asked Parma's mayor Tim DeGeeter why their recycle cans are bigger than trash
he said, we are aiming at having more recycled tons in the future, than now so it only
makes sense to think ahead and get larger barrels. Perhaps, Ward 3 councilman should
have been training City Hall instead of trying his social experiments on the residents.

.

.

[russell dunn]

somewhere along the line you might want to factor in the elimination of the Cushman fleet
which was a nightmare to maintain and a money sponge beyond belief. any discussion
which does not reference this reduction in vehicles and operators is lacking.

how does a crew of 16 unload a containership at sea ?

one of the huge advantages to shipping this way is the security of the cargo enroute. how are
the doors going to be opened on their hinges, all of those layers ? how does it happen ?