Bear with me folks, this is not another discussion of litter in the neighborhood. This is REAL trash talk!
Trash is trash is trash, trash by any other name would still be trash [sorry Gertrude], right?
Uh … no.
Here in beautiful downtown Kentlands, we have at least five different kinds of trash and they are not [supposed to be] interchangeable.
An important point – residents who put unacceptable materials out for collection are responsible for retrieving them and disposing of them properly if they are left behind.
Garbage
Garbage is discarded food and “stuff” with food on it. The Kentlands Citizens Assembly (KCA) provides twice-weekly garbage removal (Tuesday and Friday) through a contractor. This service is both a very important part of keeping Kentlands beautiful and a significant cost. Our current vendor is economical but its service quality leaves a bit to be desired so the KCA is reviewing its options.
There are two big factors to consider: capital equipment including the truck; and labor. Both contribute to good service.
We care about the truck(s). We want small trucks because large ones have difficulty navigating our mews and heavy ones damage the pavement. Unfortunately smaller trucks mean more trips to the dump, which increases labor and mileage costs. Not all trash haulers have small trash trucks and that limits our vendor choices.
We care about labor because the employees who collect the garbage determine service quality. Here, again, there is a difference: some companies pay their employees by the route while others pay their people by the hour.
Our current vendor pays by the route. This motivates their people to move through the neighborhood as quickly as possible to maximize their income and appears to be a factor in some of the service quality issues we have been experiencing.
When employees are paid by the hour, the customer can demand high-quality service because “you get what you pay for” and even small things take time. For example, if we require the trash hauler to return each can to its original location and replace the lid, the hauler can reasonably expect to be paid for the labor involved. It might not sound like much but if each can takes 12 seconds and there are 900 cans in Kentlands, that would add three labor hours to each pickup or somewhat more than 300 labor hours per year. If we choose to insist on such a service, it will probably cost the KCA about $10,000 per year and add a dollar or so to the monthly assessment.
Recyclable materials
The City of Gaithersburg picks up recyclable materials every Thursday. Importantly, the City does not want anything contaminated with food waste, stuff that’s not of the “usual household” variety of those materials. For example, a soda can is “yes,” a florescent light fixture is “no.” The City also will pass on hazardous materials such as petroleum products, liquid paint, lead acid batteries, and the like.
Yard waste
Those grass [from your LAWN, let’s not get sidetracked by politics] clippings, sticks, dead potted plants and such are not trash, they are yard waste and must be disposed of in a large, brown paper bag that can be purchased at Lowes. The City of Gaithersburg provides this service once-per-week on Thursday.
Please do NOT return yard waste to nature by throwing it into a tree save, wetland, or drain. Doing that just forces someone else, often the KCA using your homeowner association assessment dollars, to dispose of it properly when it flows downstream and clogs something, such as this drain in the Massbury Ditch.
Bulk materials
The City provides for most of the stuff that isn’t collected otherwise. This is where that fluorescent light fixture (but not the tubes or ballast) goes to the curb … and curb is literal. The City will not pick these items up in our private alleys; they must be brought out to the curb along a City street.
Hazardous materials
Hazardous materials should be dropped off at the Montgomery County Shady Grove Processing Facility and Transfer Station using the Route 355 / Frederick Road entrance. They will accept acids, partially filled aerosol cans, antifreeze, batteries, dioxins, gasoline and most other fuels and lubricants, fertilizers, fluorescent light tubes and ballasts, herbicides/ insecticides/ pesticides, mercury-containing items, paints and thinners, photographic chemicals, chemicals, and building materials that contain asbestos.
Wrong Mercury!