Too many garbage trucks! Why? (Atlanta, Norcross: sales, HOA, house)

[AlDesign]

When I was in Florida I paid $60 a year for good garbage service. Only one company for the entire city.

I was surprised to move here and have a garbage truck flying down my street (25mph) almost every day. One truck speeds down the street, whips the truck around, and picks up ONE GARBAGE CAN, then jets out of the subdivision. Of course I'm paying more, about four times more. Instead of $60 a year, I have to pay $60 every 3 months.

All these garbage trucks don't help Atlanta's "clean air" laws either. So why in the world are there so many?

[PKCorey]

The large number of unincorporated areas and competition.

[ericsonga]

Originally Posted by AlDesign

When I was in Florida I paid $60 a year for good garbage service. Only one company for the entire city.

I was surprised to move here and have a garbage truck flying down my street (25mph) almost every day. One truck speeds down the street, whips the truck around, and picks up ONE GARBAGE CAN, then jets out of the subdivision. Of course I'm paying more, about four times more. Instead of $60 a year, I have to pay $60 every 3 months.

All these garbage trucks don't help Atlanta's "clean air" laws either. So why in the world are there so many?

Do you happen to live in Gwinnett County? If, so, I will tell you a story...haha

[neil0311]

Originally Posted by AlDesign

When I was in Florida I paid $60 a year for good garbage service. Only one company for the entire city.

Because many municipalities provide garbage pickup as part of the city services and contract out to a single provider. Cities in GA do the same. As was mentioned, in unincorporated areas there is no such service and no such contract.

[AlDesign]

Originally Posted by ericsonga

Do you happen to live in Gwinnett County? If, so, I will tell you a story...haha

Exactly, Norcross.

[K'ledgeBldr]

We had the same "problem" in our neighborhood. It was brought to the attention of the HOA several years ago in a form of "we need to do something about this before someone..."

After a plan was conceived (who would give the best rate for full service if we guaranteed the whole subdivision to them), and contacting the three different services that service our subdivision- we now pay less than our neighboring subdivisions on a per house basis and have less wear and tear on our streets along with less traffic. The cost is divided among the total number of homes and is added to the yearly HOA dues.

[straightfromatown]

Originally Posted by AlDesign

When I was in Florida I paid $60 a year for good garbage service. Only one company for the entire city.

It depends on what city you are in but I'd just like to point out that you were likely subsidizing the garbage service through sales taxes and were actually paying much more than $60/year without realizing it.

[ericsonga]

Originally Posted by AlDesign

Exactly, Norcross.

Well I'm not sure if you know the story, but there was a huge push by Gwinnett County with Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful, to consolidate all the garbage service to I believe 3 trash haulers. Well that was going to happen, it was going to make everyone recycle, and it would consolidate the amount of traffic on the streets. The trash haulers who were excluded, sued, because of the way that the project was bid out. Now this issue is still in court, it has yet to be resolved. I'm sure that the resolution will be something close to what was originally conceived, just less strict and with more haulers. We shall see how that goes...It has been such a debaucle!

[RainyRainyDay]

I didn't know about the Gwinnett situation. How interesting.

I live in unincorporated Cobb, in a non-HOA subdivision. Hence we have garbage trucks rumbling about every weekday. It's so environmentally unfriendly. However, I fear my neighbors are unlikely to care about that. We're the only house on our street that puts out a recycling box. I walk my dogs every evening, so I get to see all the garbage out at the curb, and there are very few recycling boxes in use in the entire area, and those few are of course spread among several garbage haulers. This probably makes our recycling efforts a net environmental detriment, due to the immense fuel usage to pick up our pathetically few recyclables.

[northstar22]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

The large number of unincorporated areas and competition.

I honestly don't get why there are so many "unincorporated" areas here. In my home state of Michigan, anything that's not part of a city or village is incorporated as a township. All Midwestern and Northeastern states have them, and they exist to provide municipal services without the higher taxes/overhead of a city. They also take some pressure off the county government. Townships would really benefit GA.