Trash service cutbacks in KC

It’s a shame we’re losing regularly scheduled bulky item pick-up in Kansas City.

My neighborhood spent a recent weekend hauling large items to the curb because the next Monday was the last scheduled pickup date.

Immediately after the unwanted items were placed on the curb, people started driving by to collect and recycle them. Trucks canvassed the neighborhood collecting steel. College students drove by picking up furniture. People stopped their cars to get garden pots, baby strollers, even my rusty grill.

Most trucks driving by were full to overflowing. Some even hauled trailers. Large piles of trash quickly reduced in size. Everyone seemed happy, and we saved precious landfill space in the process.

Now we have to call to arrange a pickup. The neighborhood will no longer haul everything to the curb on the same date, more trash will be taken to the dump, and the onslaught of free-cyclers will come to a pause (at least I hope it’s a pause).

David A. Young
Kansas City

I recently received a letter from Kansas City regarding the decades-old trash-rebate program the city provided to apartment owners to pay for the trash-collection costs for people who rent in the city.

Over the years, as the price of trash collection has increased, the amount of rebate slowly fell behind the actual cost of collection to the point that it covered less than half the cost. Now the city, due to budget constraints, is dropping the program altogether.

This is yet another example of the city discriminating against apartment dwellers who pay the 1 percent earnings tax as well as property taxes via their rent payments to property owners.

It seems as though the city leaders can give themselves a raise yet can’t give tax-paying citizens a fair shake when it comes to providing and paying for a basic service. If single-family homeowners had been asked to pay extra to get their trash removed, there would be hell to pay. How sad is this?

Jim Birt
Kansas City

Comments

[solomon]

You hit the nail on the head T. Pick up the phone and let them know you'll have it on the curb and they'll pick it up.

What this will eliminate is small business owners who haul away bulk items from skirting around dump fees. Down the street from one of my rental houses is a vacant house that has a huge pile of stuff in front of it once a month. The guy who owns it has JoCo plates on his Silverado.

[T. Hanson]

Is it really that hard to pick up the phone and schedule a pickup? KC is not eliminating the bulky item pickup, they are just not going to run the big dump trucks through the neighborhoods hunting for what house has trash today and which ones don't.

It actually sounds pretty wise to save fuel and man power.

[Not Your Average Joe]

They need the money for escort and massage business investigations. You will just have to dump that old fridge off on the side of a country road.