Tag: <span>Waste Management</span>

City

Recycling bins downtown Recycling bins downtown newspaper vending racks downtown
City Administrator Joel Walinski writes in the June 4 Friday Memo:

Downtown Recycling Cans, Oh! They’re so ugly! 20 temporary recycling containers were put in place Friday June 4, 2010 along Division Street. Street Supervisor TJ Heinricy has been working with Waste Management staff to develop a test-recycling program for the downtown area over the past several months.

Our interest is in the assessing the recycling waste stream and how much use there is or could be. This information will be used in the cost analysis and consideration of the return on investment for allocating future dollars on more permanent (eye-appealing) recycling containers in the downtown area.

Seems like downtown recycling bins and newspaper vending racks should be a project for the Streetscape Task Force.

Recycling bins, Montreal Missoula recycling bins  Flash Forward recycling bin, Toronto
Left: I like the ones used in Montreal near McGill University.
Center: the ones in Missoula, Montana aren’t bad
Right: even better are ones in Toronto that serve another purpose – Art:

City

City of Northfield compost facilityThe City of Northfield’s compost facility is not due to open for two more weeks, April 13, despite the fact that spring has arrived 2-3 weeks early. Normally, I Ross Tracy would be bitching whining about the City’s lack of flexibility or poor “customer” responsiveness.

But this year’s budget woes compel me to approach it differently. I don’t know how much the City spends each season to have a part-time people staff it but let’s assume it’s approximately $15, 000 (40 hrs/week * 30 weeks * $12/hr).

compost-faq-sshotThe City could save money by cutting back hours and telling people to pay Waste Management or use the Rice County Recycling Center (see the 2010 compost site PDF).

Or it could ask its citizens to volunteer to help keep services at their present level. (Imagine this scenario happening with many other services that the City provides.)

Here’s a straw poll that’ll give city fathers and mothers an indication of citizens’ appetite for cutting vs. volunteering in order to save money:

City

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