Concern Over Ending Commercial Garbage Pick Up
Prince George, B.C. – Earlier this week, the City of Prince George announced it will stop picking up garbage from commercial operations effective September 3rd. That is not sitting well with some soon to be former customers and the Prince George Chamber of Commerce.
“The commercial operations I have spoken with are not incredibly happy with the announcement” says Chamber of Commerce CEO Christie Ray. She says the businesses tell her the move will cause an inconvenience, and they are unhappy with the way the decision was made “They would have appreciated some consultation.”
Ray says many of the businesses are small and don’t produce that much garbage, so it’s not practical to hire a private waste disposal company and have a “bin” placed on their property. She says any cost savings from no longer having to pay the City for the service, would be more than eaten up by having to hire a private company “The costs are fairly significantly higher for hiring a private waste hauler” and adds “Every added cost makes a big difference to a small business so certainly that’s something to consider.”
The City says it is making the move so it can direct its efforts to dealing with illegal dumping sites, discarded hypodermic needles and litter.
There are about 200 commercial garbage accounts in the City, and Manager of Solid Waste and Parks, Sean Le Brun, says the twice a week pick up is “time-consuming with collection vehicles traveling more than 100 kilometres a day.”
Although the City expects to lose $60 thousand a year through lost fees, it says that will be offset somewhat ( $15 thousand) by reduced tipping fees and equipment costs.
Ray says the Chamber is still mulling over whether it will lobby the City on behalf of those businesses “We weren’t aware of this issue beforehand, we found out just like everybody else, it’s undecided yet on how the Chamber will approach this issue.”
Comments
The idea that they are not doing commercial garbage to deal with needles is ridiculous.
As far as illegal dumping goes, the Regional District runs the show. They should be the ones taking care of all this illegal dumping that’s going on all over town.
The city should simply state the obvious that with the advent of the private haulers and their cheaper workforce costs and cheaper equipment costs, it didn’t make good business sense to continue with the commercial haulage for a sparse number of users that still expect the city to do it.
As usual, the C of C is pushing the agenda of the 5% of businesses in this town that see a value in paying dues to be a member of their business club.
The remaining $45,000.00 will be taken from taxpayers pockets to make up for it.
another step to deter small business in PG.
But was shocked to learn that ” it’s time consuming” we don’t pay you do we? If so you should be ashamed.
Not telling the businesses that will be affected is plain ignorant. Not how a city hall should function.
Junkies win…businesses loose.
My taxes for my businesse went up from $43,000 to $46,000
Now I’m being told no garbage service.
How businesse friendly is that?
If the City hadn’t turned over the transfer stations and dump to the Regional District AND allowed them to jack up the rates due to less garbage showing up at the dump……people would use the dump or transfer stations and not the bush. I know the city only has two seats on the Regional District, but they haven’t made much of a fuss over the rate increases over the years!!
Regional District needs to take responsibility for their actions. Up the “tipping fee” at the landfill and let the City pick up the illegally dumped garbage. Outrageous! I’m not saying lazy people wouldn’t dump their garbage, but I can guarantee the illegal dumping has increased significantly since this charge was implemented.
What business gets its garbage picked up by the city that is included in its property taxes , we have been paying taxes to the city for years and get nothing for it other than another tax increase.
I don’t know how many times I have read posts on this site that put down government workers and the statement that private companies can do the job cheaper. Now the Chamber is saying that private collection companies are to costly for garbage pick up. Lets go the so called free enterprise route if these businesses want pick up.
Exactly Oldun! Would’nt the private companies who would now be doing the pickup also be members of the Chamber of Commerce? They are businesses too, so in a sense it would be Chamer of Commerce members paying for the services of other Chamber of Commerce members.
And good for pointing out the many on here complaining about how private companies could provide public services cheaper than more costly government workers… where are these whiners now?
Thank you City Hall, time for business to get weaned off our taxpayer’s teat!!!
Pull out your wallet, your taxes now have to cover this person’s wages while “businesses get weaned”
These private business’s pay the City to pick up their bins. Read the article. What they are saying is that it is cheaper to have the city provide this service than private business.
The city is using the needle clean up, and picking up garbage that has been illegally dumped as a red herring.
The fact of the matter is, they are discontinuing this service, and rather than reduce their work force, they are creating other issue’s to keep these people on the payroll.
If they reduced staff by even one employee this would offset the loss of revenue that they are harping about.
Smoke and mirrors comes to mind.
But sadly they are not reducing an employee, just putting him/her somewhere else. So instead of this position being paid for by businesses (in terms of paying for the garbage pickup) the position now will have no revenue to cover its wages. Thus the taxpayer will pick up the tab in increased utility fees so this person can go pick up needles.
So basically contracting out the service will cost the consumer more. I thought contracting out was supported by the businesses sector and that it is always cheaper ?
when I think of how the city raises taxes every year, I think of socialism. I thought we voted in these council members based on their promises to keep costs under control. Nope, not even close. You can only raise taxes in a perfect world. Your worship mr. Hall was was impressed
with Justin Trudeaus overspending of some 70 billion dollars we don’t have. Shame on mayor hall, Shame on Trudeau, shame on Canadians for not understanding how to budget. Truth is Canada has no money. Have a nice day.
A hit to small downtown business owners who simply don’t have enough garbage to warrant renting a big honking bin at $200 per month and a bit hit to taxpayers too. Double whammy. Bad decision making Council. And under the pretext of covering yet another bad decision to increase dumping fees. What a lot of garbage!
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