SANATOGA PA – Give James Kaiser credit as a man who can sift through garbage and create a valuable checklist from what he finds.

Kaiser – a member of the Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township Board of Commissioners – did not physically picked though piles of refuse. He did, however, read the extensive compilation released earlier this month of residents’ answers to a survey on trash collection. Within its 70 double-sided pages, he claims, were a few golden nuggets.

From that report, Kaiser told board members Thursday (Aug. 18, 2011), has come a list of items that likely will form the basis of the township’s next contract with a waste hauler.

Lower Pottsgrove during March (2011) issued a 21-question survey about existing trash removal services. More than 960 people responded; some with compliments, some with complaints, and many with suggestions on what they want to see in whatever forthcoming deal commissioners sign with a hauler.

The current contract with Norristown PA-based J.P. Mascaro and Sons is due to expire. Commissioners want to solicit bids for future years’ hauling, from Mascaro and competitors, as quickly as possible so they can be evaluated “well before year-end” and in advance of work on the 2012 township budget, Kaiser said.

Most survey respondents generally hope to pay less for hauling services they already receive. That would be nice, Kaiser agrees, but may not be possible. What the township might accomplish, however, is to avoid a substantial hauling price increase by heeding residents’ suggestions.

Lower Pottsgrove will actively look, he said, at a choice of days other than Monday on which garbage is picked up. It may reduce its number of yard waste collections, and rely in part on a North Coventry PA compost vendor that says it will accept for free yard waste brought to its site. It may rethink how bulk items like stoves are collected.

Just as important, Kaiser noted, is what it probably won’t do. The township is unlikely to consider charging for garbage by the bag; a bookkeeping nightmare, commissioners said earlier. It probably also won’t limit the number of bags or cans that can be put out to the curb weekly. “The survey makes it clear people want the ability to get rid of more junk, not less,” he said in answer to a question.

His colleagues asked Kaiser to help prepare bid documents for board consideration during its Sept. 6 (Tuesday) meeting.

Related:

• Thanks To Survey Input, Township Preparing Trash Bids
• From Township Trash Survey, A Heap Of Interesting Ideas
• Township Didn’t Know You’d Have Trash On Your Mind
• Trash Talkin’: Township Wants Opinions On Messy Topic
• Lower Pottsgrove Seeks Suggestions In A Trash Survey

Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of Aug. 18):

• Thanks To Survey Input, Township Preparing Trash Bids
• Pottstown Library Asks Township For Higher Funding
• Commissioners OK Pruss Hill Road Accidents Study
• July 2011 Warrants From Lower Pottsgrove Now Online
• Township Pays Two Attorneys In Police Discipline Case
• Road Re-Paving Is Coming; Just When Anybody’s Guess
• Township, An Unhappy Bank Customer, Goes Elsewhere
• Township May Put Money Where Authority’s Mouth Is

Illustration by The Post using Google Images