Faced with a nationwide rise in landfill fees and escalating recycling costs, the City of Crawfordsville must decide whether to continue the use of trash stickers, Mayor Todd Barton said.
During his regular appearance on WBAA radio’s “Ask the Mayor” program last week, Barton said the “pay-as-you-throw” model for trash collection should be revisited, but not until the public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic is lifted.
“A lot of discussion needs to happen there and a lot of public input, and I can say [the trash service is] struggling but we’re going to have to put that off until we can actually have public meetings,” Barton said.
The city will resume regular open meetings on Zoom on Wednesday as the Board of Public Works and Safety convenes in public for the first time since Crawfordsville’s health emergency was declared March 18. But as other boards and commissions eventually come back into session, Barton has asked that topics requiring “a large amount of public weigh-in” be taken off the agenda until residents are able to offer comments in person.
Crawfordsville is among six other communities around its size collecting its own trash. Communities like Lebanon and Avon contract with private companies for curbside service.
City residents are charged $2 per bag for up to 10 bags for every pickup. Nearly $64,000 was generated from trash stickers during the first quarter of the year, before the stickers were suspended during the stay-at-home order.
The trash service account began March more than $9,000 in the red before ending up with a positive balance of $2,529, according to the city’s monthly fund report.
“I knew that [the service] was struggling financially and forgoing the revenue for a few weeks was going to be crippling,” Barton said, “but at the end of the day you have to do what’s [right for public health] so that’s why we made the decision to suspend it.
“When we start having public meetings now, we’re going to have to come to terms with the impact of that decision on a system that was already straining.”
The city’s total trash service budget for 2020 is $304,762, about a $3 increase from the previous year. The service spent $259,564 in 2019.
One of the problems the city faces with trash collection is that it’s becoming more expensive to dump in the landfill. The tipping fee will rise from $54.50 per ton this year to $59.55 in 2023. The city paid $54 per ton in 2019.
Nationwide, municipal solid waste landfill tipping fees rose 5.2% in 2019 from the previous year, according to the nonprofit Environmental Research & Education Foundation.
