Comments on: Boise Pays To Ship Recyclables To Portland, Seattle

By: sam the sham

sam the sham — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 10:12:28 +0000

Boise is not getting it’s money’s worth from me and other single person households. I have a “small” recycling can and am proud to toss away the center of the toilet paper roll – which actually could break down in my composting. I fail to use any drink packaging which contains plastic and we don’t recycle the glass containers, nor the lined boxes which I do use.

Oh well, I didn’t vote for it. As a matter of fact, you didn’t either.

By: jason

jason — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:15:15 +0000

Wasting the taxpayers dollars and cents, and their own scooples!

By: Mr. Watcher

Mr. Watcher — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:31:15 +0000

To even make this very, very simple we can look at this matter this way.
Joe is buying some hides of leather for a new custom leather coat. He is buying the leather by the square yard to ship to the leather shop who will make the leather coat. He’s shipping the leather with UPS and the weight of the leather is 15 pounds. The by the yard price is totally different than the shipping weight with UPS.
This can not be more clear. We are being ripped off by a scam and people just can not see it which has me worried, deeply.

By: Mr. Watcher

Mr. Watcher — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:27:29 +0000

Ed, as you can see there is a problem here. I understand your point on, by the ton and by the cubic yard. However the city is saying that 40 percent more recyclable trash is being collected and is using the dump size by saying all the trash saves $155 per month in land fill cost. The shipping weight by the ton is another issue.
So lets stick with the dump size because thats what the city is saying on the 40 percent more and using dump savings to price the $155K. The 40 percent more recyclable trash is only $62K in new dump space saved. The old way when we sorted out recycled trash was saving $93K per month in dump space. This is very simple using the city’s very own numbers.
Now the bottom line is this: We are spending $165K per month to save $62K in new dump space. That leaves a cost of $103K each month of a difference in shipping cost over dump space saved. This $103K times 12 months is $1,236,000 per year cost that was never there before with the old way we did our recyclable trash when we sorted it ourselves.
Why is this so hard to understand is beyond me. The fact is clear the city can not use shipping weight for anything but shipping cost. They can only use cubic yards to come up with dump savings. Apples and oranges.

By: backalleytrash

backalleytrash — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:55:49 +0000

If $10,000 is such a burden perhaps we should just throw our trash in the Boise river and let it float to Washington.

By: Mr. Watcher

Mr. Watcher — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 13:19:50 +0000

Read up a few posts, in fact the one you replied to, to start with. Follow this one more time please. The city is taking the full amount of unsorted trash into account. What about the past way we did recycling where it wasn’t shipped to Portland. That amount was no less than half of what is being collected today. That amount of trash wasn’t put in the land fill. So to do honest math, we need to subtract that old sorted recyclable trash to see what the new unsorted trash system is really costing us. Follow this: The city is saying we are saving $155K per month by not putting this unsorted recycling into the dump. This is totally disregarding the amount of sorted recycled (old way) that never made it to the dump as well. Combining the old way which didn’t go to the land fill and wasn’t being shipped to Portland is clearly a dishonest shell game.
What if the real numbers showed that the new unsorted way only added the amount of recyclable trash was only 20 percent more. That would mean the city is willing to spend $165K in new money to ship all of our recyclable trash to Portland for just 20 percent more trash collected by not having folks sort it out. The question not being asked is: How much more recyclable trash is this new way of collecting recyclable trash adding to what was already being collected when we sorted the recyclable trash and is the $165K cost per month worth it?
This is as best as I can simplify this matter to explain it to you. If you still don’t get it, oh well money in a depression is easy come easy go. As the city tax feed types see it.

EDITOR NOTE–Watcher, if it helps any the city claims a 40% increase in recycled trash under the new system. Another problem is TRASH seems to be measured in cubic yards at the dump, but compacted RECYCLABLES is measured by the ton with no way to determine percentage of profitable aluminum, or costly plastic. It is sketchy at best.

By: ericn1300

ericn1300 — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:12:40 +0000

Mr Watcher, where the heck do you come up with “unsorted recyclable trash is going to cost the taxpayers over a million dollars a year and counting upward in dollars.” when the story we’re debating states “a net difference of $10,482”? You use the cliche “follow the money”, I say “show me the the money?”.

How do you come up with a million bucks a year for collection and transfer of recyclables for 69,012 households? If it were so, I’d jump to get that contract.

And don’t go getting holier than thou on me, I have a family of six that sits down for dinner and breakfast every day and we recycle religiously, and between the four bins of sorted recyclables, the mulching lawn mower, and the the compost pile we only put out one small kitchen bag of trash a week.

In the end it ain’t about you and me watcher, were doing things right. It’s about all the others we need to encourage to join us, and if ten grand and a “no sort” system is all it takes I’m all for it.

By: Mr. Watcher

Mr. Watcher — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 14:18:16 +0000

ericn1300, The old way we did this was sort our own recyclable trash. That recyclable trash was sold and the buyer paid the shipping to get it to where they wanted it to go. Even if the recyclable trash that was sorted in the past was giving away for free and the new owner paid for the shipping that would make sense over this new way. When simple arithmetic is used the raw truth comes out that this new way of dealing with unsorted recyclable trash is going to cost the taxpayers over a million dollars a year and counting upward in dollars. Say nothing of the tons of new pollution from all of this shipping and the wasting of natural resources so mayor Dave can “have my life back”.
All of this tells me one and or two things. It sure seems to me that Dave is an elitist who is too proud to touch his recyclable trash to sort it. Or, someone is making a ton of money shipping this stuff and if so the old words of wit in this kind of deal are, “follow the money”. Which leaves me with one question: How much money will be wasted before the tax feed come to their senses and pull the plug on this waste of money and we go back to sorting our own recyclable trash.

By: TJ

TJ — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:09:23 +0000

Where is all the yard waste, as in bush and tree trimming, going to go when people only have the one can? It might work for a two person family, but could hardly work for a multiple member family. It seems to me that yard waste should be recyclable = maybe not across state lines. Just a thought.

By: ericn1300

ericn1300 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 23:05:23 +0000

It all makes sense to me. Our recyclables have to be shipped out anyway since there is no facilities to recycle them here, separated or not, and no market here even if we could recycle them into commodities.

The extra expense of shipping should be offset, at least partially, by reducing the number of cubic yards of waste going into the Ada County Landfill. Does the current contract bill The City of Boise by the yard or by the year. I hope The Guardian has looked into that side of the equation.