Changes to Trash & Recycle Services
4-6-22 Update
OLCA Friends and Neighbors:
After much work and deliberation, the Board and Property Management have found a solution to our short and long-term trash and recycle issue. This solution will be implemented on the apartment side as well.
Beginning Friday, April 15, John’s Disposal, a local company, will begin shuttle truck collection of trash and recycle very similar to the service provided by Waste Management. We only recently became aware that this option was available to Overlook Lakes.
Trash and recycle will be picked up weekly, but on Fridays rather than Mondays. John’s will be providing their own containers for recycles sometime in early May. Please continue to use your existing recycle containers for now.
In addition to their ability to continue the “Pick-up-At-Door” feature that we’ve all come to appreciate, an important factor in our decision was that John’s Disposal has the capability to start sooner than might be expected for a new account, which eliminated the need to place temporary dumpsters throughout the community until a more permanent solution was found. Another factor in this decision was the inability of many of our neighbors to safely or easily get their trash and recycle to dumpsters.
This will be good news to most, as the bulk of the comments the Board received were not favorable to the dumpster (Option B), or the Option A with the 64-gallon totes. Option A, as mentioned before, was an option that would not work based on how our community is laid out. This new service however does come with a much higher price tag.
The reasons for the higher cost of this service are several, and start with the fact that a while back, Wisconsin no longer allowed the shuttle trucks to be towed by the larger garbage trucks that the trash and recycle would be emptied into, in effect doubling the number of employees required to service an account – one to drive the large garbage truck and one to drive the small truck to pick up our refuse. Adding to this is the recent shortage of labor and equipment and the higher cost of labor and fuel. All of these factors combined were the factors cited by Waste Management as reasons for discontinuing this service model.
John’s Disposal has been offering this service model in several areas, one of them River Hills, which is how our Property Manager first came to know of this option.
The cost of this service will be $29/month/condo, which equals $64,032 annually, a significant increase from the 2022 budgeted cost of just over $23,000. This will result in a dues increase of $19/month beginning May 1. While this is a large increase, it is consistent with what John’s Disposal charges other communities for the same service.
John’s Disposal does not require a contract but does have a small penalty if service is terminated during the first 12-months of service.
The Board and Property Management will continue to explore options C & D, shown below, as a potential lower-cost option for disposing of trash and recycles in the future. There are many components to constructing corrals which would need to be built to “blend” with our community and that will take several months to work through. The Board also feels it is important to understand all of the implications of using compactors, and, given the urgency to put a solution in place now, there wasn’t time to fully evaluate that option at this time.
Option C: Consider the permanent use and lease of on-site compactors. Our development would require the leasing of 2-3 trash compactors (condos and apartments), which would be placed in gated “corrals” along with containers for recycles.
Option D: Hiring of a company to pick up the garbage and recyclables each week and transport them to the compactor described in option “C”.
Sincerely,
OLCA Board of Directors
