Out with the trash.
SANATOGA PA – The average cost of a bag of groceries – the paper kind, not the smaller plastic carriers – is estimated nationally at about $25. Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township resident William Wolfgang guesses his average cost of a bag of garbage is about $4. The groceries, Wolfgang recently told the township Board of Commissioners, surely are the better deal.
“Getting rid of garbage is just costing too much,” Wolfgang said during a board meeting earlier this month.
- Got something on your mind to discuss with commissioners? You get another opportunity tonight (Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010) when they meet at 7 p.m. in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Pottstown PA. The meeting is open to the public. Find its agenda here.
Trash recycling and collection bills were mailed Sept. 17, and were due to be paid just three days ago, on Monday (Oct. 18). Wolfgang wrote his check his early, and then did some quick calculations. “We’re pretty careful,” and the household is small “so we don’t throw out a lot,” Wolfgang explained Oct. 4. “I think that’s an awful amount to be paying for garbage.”
No one on the board disagreed.
Wolfgang’s solution, also occasionally proposed by others, was to charge individual households for the amount of waste they actually produce. That way each would pay its fair share and, Wolfgang expected, he would pay less. But several commissioners and Manager Rodney Hawthorne noted that keeping track of how much trash each household generated could become an accounting nightmare … and a smelly mess.
Hawthorne offered hope though. The township’s contract with garbage hauler J.P. Mascaro and Sons, headquartered in Audubon PA, is due for renewal during 2011. “It’s worth exploring,” he said of Wolfgang’s idea. “In fact, any and all options can be considered next year. We’ll put it all on the table then,” Hawthorne said.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Oct. 4):
- Minutes Of The Board’s Oct. 4 Meeting (Approved Oct. 21, 2010)
- What’s A Better Deal?: Groceries, $25, Or Township Trash, $4
- Township Plans No-Parking Zone On North Adams Street
- Lower Pottsgrove Opposes Firefighter Cancer Mandate
- The Marshal? Sorry, He’s Kinda Busy Right Now …
- Former Reporter Asks Commissioners To Support 422 Tolls
- Welcoming The Newest Of Lower Pottsgrove’s Finest
- Lower Pottsgrove Gives Gift Its Diesel Fuel Business
- Lower Pottsgrove Commissioners May Reward Bidders
