Another trash bin could cost you
In his State of the City speech, Mayor Sylvester Turner on Tuesday touched on the great issues besetting America’s fourth-largest city — from a revenue cap squeezing its budget to the need for 500 additional police officers to a philanthropic model to assist troubled schools.
Then on Wednesday, the City Council, devoid of all the prior day’s pomp, got down to basics and took a vote on that most elemental aspect of municipal government: the trash can.
Discussions of varied crises, from policing to affordable housing, would wait another day, but this much was decided, unanimously: Residents who ask the city for more than one replacement trash or
recycling container per decade now will have to pay $74.
The city will continue to provide replacements free of charge when containers are damaged by city trucks, or when a bin floats away during a flood. It also will continue to repair broken lids and wheels for free.
The days of repeatedly replacing trash and recycling bins without charge, however, are over.
“We can’t continue to replace one trash can after another. It was costing us too much,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “We all have to be cognizant and mindful of every dollar that’s expended. The city needs to be responsible and accountable, but so does the customer.”
He cited one address on the east side where, a city review showed, a homeowner had requested 16 new trash containers in two years. Six other residents requested an average of five to seven carts a year.
Houston has about 780,000 of the 96-gallon containers in circulation and replaces about 2.6 percent of them annually at a cost to taxpayers of about $1 million.
The council accepted an amendment to the proposal from Councilman Robert Gallegos that will let those older than 65 and those enrolled in a city pickup program for disabled residents pay only the $24 delivery fee and not the replacement cost of the container if they need a second replacement bin within a decade.
Gallegos has raised the issue repeatedly in recent years, saying it is imprudent to continue replacing the cans for free at a time when tight budgets have limited key services.
“Most of these are first- and second-time replacements,” he said. “Many are third- and fourth-time replacements.”
Linda Scurlock’s southwest Houston neighborhood is among the top five areas reporting container problems with 311 service requests so far this year, data show. Little wonder, Scurlock said, since city truck drivers seem to leave so many containers in the street, creating an obstacle course for motorists.
Still, Scurlock said containers not hit by cars seem sturdy enough that she hopes most families will not be charged the replacement fee.
“I’ve had the black one for at least 10 years, so I don’t think that would be a problem,” she said. “But it would be a problem for somebody who’s on a fixed income and people who are poor. That’s your light bill.”
Super Neighborhood Alliance president Michael Huffmaster, who leads a coalition of civic clubs that includes Scurlock’s Central Southwest neighborhood, said he had hoped the city would engage residents more on the proposal before adopting it. One idea he would have offered, he said, would be to drop the fees for each year a resident keeps her cart in working order.
“Far be it from me to tell the city how to run their policy, but maybe they could have prorated these replacement changes as opposed to a step up to the full charge,” he said.
Cart replacement fees aside, Houston remains the only big city in Texas that does not charge a monthly fee for residential trash and recycling pickup; those services are covered in the city’s general budget, which is supported mostly by property and sales taxes.
Austin charges residents $43 monthly for waste collection; Dallas, San Antonio and Forth Worth residents pay between $23 and $27 a month; El Paso charges $17.
Most of those cities charge $55 for replacement bins, but only when the container is damaged due to a resident’s actions.
To avoid paying for a new cart to replace one that is stolen, Turner said, residents should file a report with the Houston Police Department.
The city's trash and recycling bins are covered by a 10-year warranty, but it is unclear how often those policies are invoked.