Page 135 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

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106 Waste Management Practices: Municipal, Hazardous, and Industrial
5.2.2 SERVICE AREA AND LEVEL OF SERVICE
City street and block maps should be evaluated by program planners to determine street configura-
tions, including the number of houses, location of one-way and dead-end streets, and traffic pat-
terns. The ultimate goal is to formulate an efficient system where dead time (e.g., U-turns, detours,
delays at railroad crossings) for vehicles and collection crews is minimized.
The level of services to the community includes specifying the materials to be collected and any
requirements for separate collection (e.g., picking up recyclables in a separate vehicle). The fre-
quency of pickup and the set-out requirements for residents must also be determined.

5.2.3 PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE COLLECTION
The collection system for a municipality may be operated by a municipal department, one or more
competing private firms, or a combination of public and private haulers. In municipal collection, a
city or county agency such as the local waste management office hires its own employees and
equipment to collect solid waste. With private collection, the municipal agency contracts with a pri-
vate collection firm. Larger communities may issue multiple collection contracts, each for a differ-
ent geographic area, type of customer (single-family vs. multi-family units), or material collected
(e.g., MSW vs. recyclables). Private collection relies on competition to control prices and quality
of service. Some U.S. communities allow haulers to bid competitively to provide a specified level
of service to residents within an area. Residents then contract directly with the designated hauler
for their area.

5.2.4 FUNDING THE COLLECTION SYSTEM
The municipality must formulate a funding plan to generate the money necessary to pay for collec-
tion services. The three alternatives for funding solid waste services are property tax revenues, flat
fees, and variable-rate fees. Property taxes are the conventional means of funding solid waste col-
lection, especially in communities where municipal employees are the waste collectors and haulers.
The property tax method is preferred for its administrative simplicity; no separate system is neces-
sary to bill and collect payments, since funds are derived via the collection of personal and corpo-
rate property taxes. Funding waste collection from property taxes, however, provides no incentive
for waste reduction by residents (U.S. EPA, 2003).
In recent years, many municipalities have shifted away from covering costs through property
taxes and are instead instituting user fees, primarily a result of imposed caps on property tax
increases. With the property tax method of payment, customers usually never see a bill and gener-
ally have no idea how much it costs to remove their wastes. Flat fees are a common method for
funding collection in communities served by private haulers and in municipalities where a separate
authority is used for solid waste services. As with the property tax method, the flat-fee method pro-
vides no incentive for reducing wastes by residents.
The variable-rate fee system (also known as “pay as you throw”) requires waste generators to
pay in proportion to the amount of wastes they set out for collection. Variable-rate systems typically
require that residents purchase special bags or stickers (Figure 5.1); a range of service levels are
made available to generators. The purchase price of bags or stickers is set sufficiently high to cover
program costs. The use of such bags and stickers helps citizens to become more aware of how much
waste they are producing; thus, there is an incentive to reduce waste volumes. In addition, by using
smaller or fewer bags or fewer stickers, residents can generate savings from source reduction
efforts. Another option is to charge different rates for various sizes of cans or other containers. Some
communities will collect recyclables at reduced cost to residents as a financial incentive for recy-
cling instead of disposal. In a study of eight communities (Miranda and Aldy, 1996), significant
increases in recycling tonnages were reported when a pay-as-you-throw pricing system was estab-
lished. San Jose, California, and Lansing, Michigan, experienced more than a doubling of recycling