residential trash collection has been somewhat contentious and so hopefully we will be able to answer most people's questions and hopefully resolve their concerns here thanks for having me on your show  im yeah it's been challenging these last few months but i've heard you referred to the garbage queen of maple although you have been coronated well it's it's quite an honor and really it is important to get the word out to residents so i'm glad i'm on the show on and hopefully we can answer those questions but you know the city council really this came from initially our environmental and natural resources nation they had some real concerns about the city's open h trash system and how the number of vehicles the emissions lack of city management of our solid waste you know was really an environmental concern for them and we had also heard from a lot of our residen had just had as an example road reconstruction in front of their house and were assessed you know thousands of dollars for that work and we're concerned about all the large trucks going back and forth we have nine licensed upset a certain trash day you know wednesday could be sitting out front on your porch and you know you could see nine haulers coming back and forth so that that takes a lot of wear and tear on the road so it came from a grassroots effort to from our residents but i know i know from talking to some residents sun rose law and they were talking about the the rabble you know the street there and you know how we're going to address that issue and while we're talking and looking at the street there and the gentleman who was saying you know my foundation is cracking from all the trucks and stuff that goes along there while we were there in just a brief period of time we saw four different garbage trucks rumbled by you know on pick up or whatever and so you know i think while this has been a contentious issue i think there are a lot of folks out in maplewood one are concerned about the the number of trucks the impact on the streets and and finally the bottom line is the cost to you know want to go out to the city council level their top goal was saving residents money so they up with several objectives strout the planning process making sure that they followed all of the any kind of changes they made first was economics again saving residents money second was service ensuring that the service levels were it exceeded the current open hauling system you know like in our organize system we're going to have one free christmas tree to make up things of that nature so offering those service levels environmental was the third safety efficiency is something that we need to ensure with any kind of organized system and then we had this huge planning process you know it lasted a year with the council and two years prior with the environmental commission so it was a really long planning process and you know the a statics of an open hauling system versus an organized ensuring that we address that and then looking at the impacts to the haulers so these are all the goals that the city council wanted to obtain when reviewing are open to an organized system well you know and as you know i i don't get involved in council politics but but i i certainly have to make an observation that compton member john nephew did outstanding work in this area as far as the analyzing i remember him asking for people's trash bill she could do the comparison and i mean everything was above board on this and i guess as some would say paid the ultimate price in the last election and be that as it may i think we have a pretty sound plan that went through all the different aspects and addressed them according to the state law which is very very cumbersome and very stringent as far as the detail all the leadership really made a difference in the whole planning process but yeah having council member nephew do that research on the rates and having our trash hauling working group which included council members environmental damage or doesn't forget those and staff you know really working at looking at  ways to make improvements and making in an open forum for all to comment was really important and one thing that came out of the that trash hauling working group was the idea that the city if we had any kind of organized system was at the city should actually purchase the cartons a couple reasons for that number one is that it allowed all of the smaller haulers to be more competitive regular bidding so it really put everyone on kind of an even playing field as far as the proposals were concerned and i don't forget you know the during the proposal time the haulers could restrain a trade violations and stuff like that get together and propose different districts if they chose and we did receive six submittals to our proposal and couple of those had the district proposal but in the end they weren't chosen as the top competitive i know that maple would be will be supplying the trash curch for this new service when all the residents receive those cards so they'll receive a black card and the reason the black carts were chosen was because they were made out of fifty percent up to fifty percent post consumer product recycled rehire except yeah so it seemed like the green alternative which was and in addition they were lower cost for the city so it didn't we go in with nationwide buying group it was the city of san antonio or they were able to join that bid to really lower the price yeah the city used to cooperate of purchasing so we were able to negotiate the best price so it was it was really kind of a new way of doing a large purchase for the city of may put it is allowed through state statute so so these carts will be delivered to our residence and we went through this trash cart order period and the carts will be delivered to them september tenth until about ten or twenty fourth they'll all be rolled out allied we services will be doing that delivery so in that timeframe you know they'll be out in certain neighborhoods i'm sure i went through knew this when i was in california that you know they delivered the ninety five ones on some days and then the smaller ones other days so i presume that carts will be distributed on size and so your neighbor may get a cart today and you may have to wait till later on in the week to get your card that could be the case a neighbor shouldn't be concerned if their neighbor received a card in that time frame because there's this coming in the next day or two days so the other thing about the current i thought was interesting too is that they're going to have an r d chip in them and some of the conspirators thought that that was going to have some profound effect you know maybe looking for the black helicopters to come or whatever and doing their research all the r f d thing just says what the address is so that if some hooligan takes your card and is found in the ditch a couple blocks over they'll be able to identify that this card belongs at such and such address and that's the only i believe the only aspect that this r f d chips are true and the reason we put them in prior is it's a lot less expensive and the city will be you and allied will be using them for customer service purposes only so that it won't store you know what you throw or anything like that so it's just  create a better more efficient automated system ok ok let's move on to who should residents call if they have concerns about the part that has delivered or if it's going to have any other traffic questions allied will be doing the customer service oem they're going to be available since seven am to five pm and their telephone number is six five one four five five eight six three four that is alleyway services customer service telephone number so they can call they'll be someone local answering that phone call and during the car roll out you know if they find that it's not the right cart that they thought they ordered or whatever the case may be give ally to call and by my name great thing i'm with allied waste your nutritional are starting october first starting september tenth through the twenty fourth your carts will be getting delivered use your existing cart in till october first you might be getting your card on a different day from your neighbor everybody has a different sized cart so don't be concerned we have a two week gap that we're going to be it's delivery no starts off your neighbors come don't call right away with a couple days of cards will be delivered between september tenth and september twenty fourth our trucks are very big and shiny may have lotsa lights we appreciate the kids like our trucks but we would like to have them up in the yard away from the truck and they should never go behind the truck on their bicycles when their plane in the sac we're looking forward to taking care of your trash needs starting october first we appreciate this business and want to do everything within our power to make sure that we have no issues safety is huge you know those are really large vehicles going up and down our streets and we have a lot of kids out there playing you know on the side like yeah so that was a huge issue and i should note that the contract with ally does call for one free card exchange per year so you know you can always change but within that first one month roll out we want to make sure that everyone has a right heart by october first so we won't count it as that one free card exchange so basically recap allied will be providing the customer service but if for some reason  our citizens have concerns they can always call city hall and talk to either you or me and get and to make sure that they're properly supervised oh absolutely yeah of course the city  boss just like the city is under our current contract with the recycling caller who is tennis recycling and we still get calls the city does but tennis does supply the the customer service as it's a monday isn't october yeah worked up pretty good and our trash service routes run monday through friday and what will happen is residents should place the trash in those new carts and place it out on the driveway at the end of the driveway on their regular trash service day that first week in october so if you have a monday route you place it out october first if you had a wednesday route you place it out over a third ok well that's  straightforward and that leads us to the next question is what happens to the residents existing cards through the other trash hauler well the city is working with the existing haulers to have all of their cards picked up during their last service around september of course the nine residential haulers they'll be eight that will no longer have a residential license after until their first so all the hollers including allied will pick up their existing carts their last service around september or if they can't get to it that that time we're working with them to pick it up in october so basically dancer the citizen's question is once he put it out  and then they start using the the city's card basically put it out and the other har will pick it up hopefully on a timely basis well we hope yes we hope that's the case and in the event that that doesn't happen the city will pick up those cards and store them and release them to the holler but should know that after october first it's really important to continue to use just the city the city was supplied car because allied or the other hollers will be a pick up trash in those other cards ok the next question is i understand that state law prohibits some items from being thrown into the trash can you describe what residential throw away in the trash curch and what is prohibited yeah i got that question a lot during this trash card order and it's interesting to see how some residents still are a little unclear on that but state law does prohibit for my part is and makes common sense to you don't throw the used oil in the trash right and whatever else the paint and this type of thing and then the third is the electronics and again recycled too and then of course the city strongly encourages everyone to recycle and keep all those recyclable products out of the trash again tennis sanitation will continue to be the city's recycling hauler and will continue to collect recyclables in that single sort methodology so you just put everything right in the city supplied those red recycling bins and it's really easy and you know the more you recycle course a less waste you're going to have and the smaller car you're going to have and the less money it's going to cost you so it makes environmental and financial sense to recycle the next question is what should residents do with their identity can throw in the trash part and i know we have the ramsey county a compost site out here just off from thirty five i know they have a hazardous pick up facility and but go ahead and what else how can the and all these ways yeah the county they actually have seven yard waste compost sites throughout ramsey county that people can bring their yard waste to secondly you know this is free to write free most yes i think so most items and then you know they can also pick up compost for free after the writing process so that's a great amenity to have and then we also promote you know backyard composting the nature center has a lot of great programs and teaches people how to how to compost your food scrap in your yard waste in your back right in your backyard and then finally allied will be offering a yard we subscription through that maple trash plan and allied will be sending  bulky items like electronics and coaches all cultures things like that the city was able to negotiate through the contract with allied pick up of those items and it's a small feat ranges from like five dollars up to thirty dollars for a t v so it's pretty reasonable you just call allied and they'd come and pick that up and then finally i do want to mention this great service that ramsey county offers it's a website where residents can determine you know any item like a and they also have a hotline for people that don't have computers and would prefer to speak to a person and it's answer twenty four hours a day seven days a week and that phone number six five one six three three easy and that's three two seven nine a high serve our cities environmental and natural resources commission this is what the new garbage can looks like there will be garbage collection was start after oct first and you put everything in here that you would normally put in your garbage can you don't put any recycling in here you don't put in any yard waste cuttings or leaves or grass clippings or anything like that that does not go in here you don't put in any hazardous waste like we have an old fax machine here or can of paint that does not go in your garbage everything that's recycled will you put in your not in your trash bin so the collection will be the same garbage chancer should be stored in your garage or in a closed container in a closed environment so that they're not  exposed to people driving by when it's time for garbage collection they should be rolled out to the end of the driveway they should be at least six feet away from any obstructions so that the truck can come in the arm can swing out pick it up dump it and put it back and then as soon as the truck is gone and the garbage has been collected please return the garbage can back to its storage space in the garage or in the enclosed area same with the recycling the recycling is picked up on the same day that should be put next to the garbage can try to leave about four feet separation and that just makes it easier for the garbage truck to pick the the can up and put it back down again i'm retired so i pretty much put it back whenever the garbage truck gets done and almost my neighbors work and the as soon as they come home they are pretty good about rolling it back into their garage so some of the benefits of going to organized collection over what we had first of all i can tell you that my wife and i will be saving over one hundred dollars a year in trash collection we live on a one block dead end called and we had seven garbage trucks coming up and down this street every week will now have one that will save on wear and tear on the roads less noise less pollution less gas less tires used cetera et cetera et cetera also i think it's just going to look nice for everybody in maplewood is going to have the same garbage can they're all going to be this black made out of recycled material with the city logo on the side everybody will have their trash bins out at the same time in their neighborhood you won't have twelve different trash cans in all different syrups and sizes and colors and everything else so we hope it works well we think it will there's no reason to believe it won't seventy percent of them of the people  united states have organized collection only thirty percent don't so and if you do have a problem we'll you'll have a number that you can call and you're the problems will be taken care of  to thank everybody in the city of maplewood we hope everybody follows the rules and we think that if we all pull together this this will be a wonderful thing for the city and everyone will save money so thanks again sure that contracted hauler would do the billing so allawi services will do the billing through the may put trash plan and they will be billing every other month so the residents will see that bill the first bill probably mid october and that will be for october november and then you know every two months from there by month they rather than quarterly right correct yeah and allied has indicated that residents can pay that bill to allied by cash check credit card or they can bills just last week we went to a national night out and some some folks asked me some questions about residential trash organized trash system and stuff and then happenstance one of the ladies with their eyes asked has anybody paid their garbage bill lately and she said yeah i just paid it yesterday and it was like sixty eight dollars for three months and i said well you know what size car do you have it cetera et cetera and basically her bill is going to go from sixty eight down to thirty nine dollars for three months but there's go last year as far as rates in the open hauling system and rates that are reported to the city we determined that residents within the city of maplewood will save one point eight million dollars per year consecutive or you know together right on their trash hauling bills and that comes out to about fifty to seventy five percent off of each individual collection rate so it's a huge savings and then i want to point out to because i get this question a lot is the recycling rates those the recycling charge that will continue to be charged on the city are sunni the residents water bill right yeah so that that will stay the same that monthly fee and i think we need to emphasize again to the rates that we quoted in the maplewood monthly we call it on our website is all taxes all fees included the overhauling rates is that you know in addition to the the taxes that you have to charge which are the county environmental charge which i think is like twenty percent and the minister pulled the state solid waste tax which is nine point seven five i believe in addition to those a lot of the haulers would charge you know administrative fees they would charge some random environmental fee like that one an environmental free i think it was like ten dollars or something and basically we in the the analysis at the hauler do themselves to it was to improve the bottom line of their statement rather than you know any environmental fever say i got a chuckle out of that but it is all residential trash will now be directed to the resource recovery facility in newport that's incinerator right yeah so what they do there is they actually take the trash sorted a couple different times pull out all the bulky items and things that can be recycled and the rest is turned into refuse residual which is burnt for energy and then in addition to that because right now there are some hollers that are taking residential trash you know cross the border to to a landfill and we have no control over that right so that that's huge i think secondly is we're going to be working on a future organics collection program once the county has the infrastructure in place to capture organics you know the food waste right the city will implement that program and that would take out about forty percent of you know the waste a resident imagine that will be  so pricing so that it really encourages people to you know financially encourages them to go to the smaller trash cart rather than the large ones so you're really paying for what you throw well this is been very