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

[wrobert]

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.

There is probably a significant amount of money that can be saved just in examining those garbage contracts. The county auditor told me that the contracts are pretty much self reporting with no checks and balances to protect the county. The companies just tell them how many households that they serviced and the county writes a check. This seems to be the norm when you are bringing in more money than the service costs, government quickly gets the impression that the service is free and as long as they have a surplus they tend to ignore it.

For example, my daughter recently moved into my grandmothers house to take care of it. The house was empty most of the year, but they had picked up garbage their since it was built. When my daughter moved in, the garbage company left her a form to be completed so they could bill the county for her garbage, but I could never confirm that they ever stopped billing the county for my grandmother's garbage. So now I am under the impression that they are getting paid twice for that house, but no way to verify it with the county who pays the bill.

 

[swantree]

one other question IMO is the fact that you have private pick up in areas like Wcolor and Wsound. WM does not pick up house by house there? a side note ....as far as cost. HOA for Seaside picked up the fee to bring in Sat trash with WM because of the Sat. turnovers during season. how do we as SoWaller account for the increase of trash/recycle during the high season?

 

[wrobert]

I came across this website in a magazine.

http://www.recyclebank.com/

They are using RFID technology and allowing you to actually earn points that are redeemable at area stores. This offers a reward to the consumer for the recycling effort. They make their money from the savings to local government through costs that they can help avoid. Now this is the sort of innovative thing I would love to see Walton County get involved.

 

[GoodWitch58]

I came across this website in a magazine.

http://www.recyclebank.com/

They are using RFID technology and allowing you to actually earn points that are redeemable at area stores. This offers a reward to the consumer for the recycling effort. They make their money from the savings to local government through costs that they can help avoid. Now this is the sort of innovative thing I would love to see Walton County get involved.

How does the community get the county leadership to "think outside the box"(or the bag, or whatever)...I know in my gut there must be a million different ways to recycle and treat the environment better.

 

[wrobert]

How does the community get the county leadership to "think outside the box"(or the bag, or whatever)...I know in my gut there must be a million different ways to recycle and treat the environment better.

Personally, I think you have to elect people into leadership that are at least willing to explore ideas that are different.

I say that because I ain't had no luck yet. And I bring up all sorts of ideas all the time to my elected officials. All I ever get is a form letter thanking me for my concern and things go back to the way they have always been.

Every once in a while things do happen. I am happy to say that due to my relentless complaining that all of the incandescent lights in the District 4 BCC office have been replaced with CFLs. And I was told that this was done so that I would quit griping about it all the time. Like I told them, I really do not care why, just as long as we could get 'er done. :funn:

My point being, if we want a recycling program, you are going to have to get on the agenda after Driftwood and speak to it a couple of times a month and it will probably happen, eventually.