Thursday, May 14, 2015

Economic Effect of Trash on Pewaukee, WI

Ally Pfister
Mr. Reuter
Econ.
May 11, 2015
Economic Effect of Trash on Pewaukee WI.
You live in Pewaukee; Correct? Did a trash can and recycle bin show up at your door sometime in the past few weeks? Do you know why? The city of Pewaukee is changing their trash collection procedure and it has an economic effect on everyone in the town, and the town itself. A new garbage collection service is being adapted by Pewaukee and it will affect every resident in the area economically.
Since 1995 Pewaukee has charged the garbage and recycling collections costs as a special charge on the end of year tax bill.  The City Attorney has said that state statutes require the city to give you a chance to pay the bill first.  This year we sent out the first annual bill for these services.

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Johnsdisposal.com says; “Johns Disposal has been selected by the Pewaukee City Council as the new garbage & recycle services provider beginning in 2015.  Residents will receive two carts, one for garbage and a second for recycling.  Residents will be required to bring the new carts to the curb on garbage & recycle day”.  Garbage will be collected every week, recycling will be collected every other week. Each Household will be provided with 1‐32 gallon plastic can for recycling. The homeowner will use their own garbage can or purchase one from Johns Disposal. Both garbage and recycling will be collected weekly in both the village and city of Pewaukee (which are different, if you weren't aware).  
By switching the town of Pewaukee over to this new trash system, it is said to lower the cost of garbage and recycling will go from  $195 per household unit to $155 per household unit. Trash is now required to be taken out to the curb once per week, unless subscribed to the “up the drive” service, with an up charge for that specific household. These residences will then be charged, an annual cost of $165.00. The City is changing the service from up‐the‐drive pickup to curbside pickup. By moving the service to curbside collections, the cost is less due to the efficiencies of using automated collection equipment. Currently all of the City residents pay for up‐the‐drive service, but only about ½ use the up‐the‐ drive service. We believe it more fair, city‐wide, if those who use or need the up‐the‐drive service pay for that level of service, and those who don’t use the service don’t subsidize those that do. By using this new service, more people will recycle and care about the way they dispose of their trash.  Its state law to recycle; and There is a cost savings for each ton diverted to recycling instead of the landfill, which in turn, affects the economy of Pewaukee WI.
Regardless if taking out the trash is a chore around your house or not, you now know more about why your are taking the trash all the way to the curb each week, and what economic effect that trash has on your household, and your town.


Work Cited
"Pewaukee Trash Cans - Google Search." Pewaukee Trash Cans - Google Search.
Web. 11 May 2015.  
"Pewaukee, City." Johns Disposal. 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 May 2015.
"Trash Cans Can Not Be Stored Outside - Steeplechase Pewaukee." Trash Cans Can
Not Be Stored Outside - Steeplechase Pewaukee. Web. 11 May 2015.
"Welcome to an Engaged Community." Pewaukee, WI. Web. 11 May 2015.

27 comments:

  1. This was an interesting blog post. I didn't know that this garbage disposal method had such a big impact on the economy. Who would've guessed that with a larger garbage bin and recycling bin the cost will actually go down. I wonder if other cities are mandating this? Interesting post, nice job!

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  2. I was curious about why the garbage collection changed so I really like your post because it was informative and had a relation to the economy. In fact, the whole incentive was for the economy. While this whole post involved the economy, I think, for the purposes of this class, that you should use more vocabulary. Overall, though, you did great! This was an awesome topic.

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  3. When we got the trash cans about two weeks ago, we thought that this was just a new implementation for the trash pick up to be more efficient. We didn’t even realize there was a change in the company that was now going to be picking the trash up. It is very interesting how small changes like the size of the trash and recycling bins can affect in such degree the economy of a small city like Pewaukee. And it so much fair for people to only pay for the services they are using like with the drive up the curb service, which I don’t understand why my neighborhood does not have it.

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  4. I think it is dumb that we got new trash cans, I liked it how it was before and I think that it should be our decision if we want to leave our trash cans outside or not. I also think that it is dumb that we can only put our recycle bin out every other week because some people run out of space in their garage for trash to be sitting around. Also some people don't even have a garage so how can they expect everyone to put their trash inside when they don't even have somewhere to put it.

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  5. I can see the financial benefit that Pewaukee went with by choosing John's disposal but at the same time for those that choose drive up service to get charged more seems a bit unfair to me. For example, I feel many old people choose this option so they don't risk taking a fall down the driveway. But the city felt that trade off of charging for that was worth it. The city probably won't get protest because either way they are still going to elect for drive up service no matter the cost.
    I was under the impression that you could only have John's garbage bins. It is also a bit of a hassle to have to store them inside as well.

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  6. I know can see the economical impact on this. It is interesting to see that people get charged more if they have the garbage waiting by there garage. But this new method seems to be quicker and efficient. As before they picked it by hand and know a robotic arms picks the can and tips it into the truck. The only downside is that you miss a day of recycling you have to wait another few weeks which is a struggle because your recycling bin may be overflowing. I like the picture saying that "These garbage bins may not be stored outside". When I drive around my neighborhoods I see people with there bins out on a non-collection day. Overall, this was good topic to talk about.

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  7. This is a very good topic and it brings up a lot of good points. I do think its unfair to charge more to drive up and get your garbage. I think that at some age they should just give it to you for free because, you can't do everything at an old age. I think that its important to start looking towards the future in all of these things even if its in the little things because, this will bring in more money than what people may think.

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  8. I don't know if people are complaining about the annual collection fee or not, but they certainly shouldn't be. Less than $200 a year to have ALL of your trash hauled away seems like a pretty good deal to me. If you had to do it yourself, a lot of time, money, and energy would be spent by a lot more people. What's with the "Trash cans can not be stored outside" thing? Maybe it's just for that subdivision, but what about houses like mine that don't even have a garage?

    Also, I wonder how much it cost to give everyone new bins.

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  9. It is interesting to see that people get charged more if they have the garbage waiting by there garage, instead of inside the bins. This new method seems to be quicker and efficient, and seems to be able to fit more products into the bins.Beforehand, they picked it by hand and many of the workers would complain about back problems or such, and now a robotic arm from the vehicle picks the can and tips it into the truck. The only downside is that you miss a day of recycling you have to wait another few weeks which is a struggle because your recycling bin may be overflowing. Another downside is when they only pick up the trash, but not the recyclables. I think it's funny how people still complain about the new service because its not a walk-up, but you don't have to lift anything any longer, and its easier to move the bins around. Overall, I enjoyed reading this post about what's going on in Pewaukee, and seeing what you all had to say about it.

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  10. I never knew about the extra charge for the garbage but this is very interesting because we can all sort of relate to this since most people at this school live in Pewaukee. I can see how this is more effective economically for the city because of the schedule and methods in general for the garbage and storage.

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  11. I think the financial benefit of the new trash cans on the economy is clear, and it's interesting to see that this is happening in Pewaukee, because we got new trash cans in Oconomowoc earlier this year. While some of their rules seem ridiculous to me, it does overall make trash-collecting a lot more efficient and cheap, and if we're spending less money on trash, we can spend more of it on other things, like fixing roads or cleaning up around town, which is awesome. The new quick and efficient garbage cans will certainly help boost the smaller city economies and if this is implemented around the country, it could have even bigger impacts.

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  12. This was a good topic to bring up because it affects EVERYONE! I agree with others that it is unfair to charge more for drive up pick up because some may have health related issue that constrict the from bringing the garbage to the curb. I also think it's funny that residents should not leave their garbage and recycle cans outside yet people in my neighborhood do this. This change in garbage and pick up that has occurred is surprising that it's made a difference in a town small like Pewaukee. In the long run it will reflect good economic use on the town and its people.

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  13. This is very interesting, but I don't understand how this is really affecting our local economy. Change trash companies does cause a change in price for the privilege to have our trash picked up. The money that the city is now saving, what are they going to do with it? Will they help the town and help GDP by using investment spending? Since trash is a big problem/ and if left alone would cause disease ... Garbage pick up is an inelastic good because it is an essential service our town needs. Is this really help our town? Honestly I don’t think it is making much of a difference. We always had garbage collection and now we are just playing 10$ less than normal. Which could possible make a big difference for Pewaukee, but we don’t know what they are going to do with the money.

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  14. $40 Doesn't seem like a lot of money per household but in the long run or when looking at it as the whole Pewaukee area those $40 will add up quick. I thought the trash can and recycling can were both really nice compared to the trash cans I had before. The recycling can is also much larger than the recycling bin and makes it more convenient for the people of Pewaukee.

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  15. The fact that the community of Pewaukee wants to save money sounds interesting. The fact that they are changing the recyclcing system is actually pretty effective because it isn’t negatively effecting anyone financially. People are saving $40 a year and the requirement is for them to pull it up to the curb of their driveways. Most of the residents do that anyways and if you want them to drive up your driveway their is only a ten dollar added fee. With no negative trade-offs, this decision sounds pretty good.

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  16. It's interesting to see how changing the trash services can save us money and it makes me feel better knowing that every time I drag the carts to the end of the driveway I'm helping to give back to my community which in turn can help me. Along with giving back to the community the citizens of Pewaukee and getting a great deal from it; they get two bins and weekly trash pick up for the year for only $165 which is a lot if you think about it if you needed to buy your bins and dispose of the trash yourself.

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  17. This small action helps achieve several goals, not only locally. These make small steps towards improving economic growth, economic efficiency, and to a small extent helps preserve the environment. This helps act on the goals of the state and federal government. If local government all across the nation take part in more unified actions, it could contribute towards many improvements.

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  18. This topic is fascinating because it its very involved in our lives. I wonder what the cost to start this system costed and how long it will take before it saves people money, regardless, this system saves people money and frees up more money to spend on other things. Despite this there are negative externalities one of these is the infrequent pickup times. If your gone for the day of pickup it will be hard to not overflow your bins.

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  19. It’s interesting to note the economic impact of trash collection; this is something I’ve never thought about. I wonder why Pewaukee recently decided to adjust their trash collection services. Were people demanding lower end of year charges? I also find it interesting that so many people pay for up-the-drive pickup. I question whether the trade off of $10 extra just to not have to take a few more steps.

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  20. I have noticed the new recycling system come about in these past few weeks, but I did not really know why until now. I actually didn’t realize that the “up-the-drive” service was factored into our taxes because it was never a service that our family used. Why pay for a service that is unneeded when we could be spending that money on other ventures? By having this reduced fee and the benefits associated with it, less of our family’s income would be going to pay for services like that, which will absolutely add up over time.

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  21. Finally I understand why somebody showed up to my house a few weeks ago, put some garbage cans on my lawn, and left. I was confused as to why this happened, although your post cleared this up and more! I had no idea that it was going to save us money in the long run, I thought we simply were just getting rid of our recycling bins and that Christmas came early and I got a garbage can. Either way it will definitely have economic benefit for Pewaukee. This will increase the efficiency of the garbage collection service and decrease the cost of putting our garbage out every week. Although what I'm still wondering about are the negative effects of this. If this new technology increases the efficiency of the garbage company and it decreases the amount of time it takes to collect the garbage, will it hurt sanitation engineers (garbage men)? If the company cuts jobs and lessens the time they are out, it could really hurt them. Either way, that's the way the world works though...someone wins and someone loses.

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  22. I had noticed the new garbage bins however never made the connection that is to increase efficiency. Whenever efficiency is increased it will be beneficial. As a result the new garbage system will help save money to all citizens in Pewaukee. Although they will only be saving each household 40 dollars, this amount will eventually add up which makes it very useful in the long run.

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  23. This was really interesting considering it involved almost everyone reading this. I also though it was weird to get trash bins. My family never used the roll out bins. We would usually just put them on the ground. For us, it has been a lot easier because we can take both down at the same time. I wish the part explaining the up-the-drive pickup made more sense because it was a little confusing. I thought that you had to pay extra for it and not that everyone was doing it through taxes. That part was just a little weird to me. Other than that, this was a really interesting post.

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  24. I was interested in this switch, wondering if the transition would yield a cheaper rate for trash. Obviously it does, thanks to the automated systems. No doubt, some citizens (myself included) will enjoy the more streamlined, efficient system, and a lower rate too! I suppose one economic downside to this switch could be the lost jobs of the people who collected the bins before the automated systems came in, but perhaps they drive the mini garbage vehicles now instead, which must be somewhat fun. Regardless, I am glad that a more efficient system was put into place, and the bigger bins are especially nice if you forget to put the trash out one week. Thanks for the information!

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  25. This was a very interesting article to read about as my family actually received new garbage a short while which is the second garbage change in the past year - year and a half. I do find it interesting that there was a forty dollar decrease in the price of garbage collectors which I think will be very beneficial in the long term for Pewaukee as small changes like this can create a domino effect of other little changes that could save Pewaukee residents thousands.

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  26. This blog post was great. It is important for people to know the different costs for having a trash bin. There are a lot of people that pay for their trash to be taken out. I hope in the future we think more about recycling to help the environment more. Today we have a lot of great options that we can choose from between recycling and throwing items away. I will need to share this with blog with some of my friends. http://www.binhireperth.net/mini-skip-hire

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  27. This blog post was great. It is important for people to know the different costs for having a trash bin. There are a lot of people that pay for their trash to be taken out. I hope in the future we think more about recycling to help the environment more. Today we have a lot of great options that we can choose from between recycling and throwing items away. I will need to share this with blog with some of my friends. http://www.binhireperth.net/mini-skip-hire

    ReplyDelete

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