Wednesday, May 28, 2014

It costs a lot to take out the garbage

From the NY Post:

Almost everything costs more in New York City — including the cost of hauling away garbage.

The city’s trash came in as the most expensive in the nation to collect at $251 a ton in a survey by the Citizens Budget Commission.

By comparison, Washington, DC, paid $182.

At the bottom of the heap, ­Arlington, Texas, pulled off something of a fiscal miracle by spending a paltry $7 a ton on waste removal, though that was in 2009.

Still, that year New York City taxpayers shelled out $228.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonder how much money could be saved if the city was able to get the sanitation union to move to one person operations as many other cities have done.

Anonymous said...

http://www.cbcny.org/sites/default/files/REPORT_GarbageFacts_05222014.pdf

For those who want to read the report.

We're Queens - We Can't Have Anything Nice said...

The garbagemen in Flooshing are pigs (no offense to oinkers)!

They can't even be bothered to fully turn the pails over anymore so anything loose doesn't get discarded.

Then they throw the pails on the ground - they can't even bother standing them up.

Time for some housekeeping! How about an online satisfaction survey from the DOS?

How about firing poor performers!

Anonymous said...

"How about firing poor performers!"

Unions. Look at how long some of the worse teachers in NYC are kept on the payroll while not teaching.

If anyone stands up to them, they'll start striking like back in the 60's and 70's.

We need a Fiorello H. LaGuardia, not this POS commie.

Anonymous said...

I can accept that NYC will have higher expenses for a variety of reasons - good and bad - but 32x what it costs in Texas? What the hell is going on!?

Anonymous said...

"32x what it costs in Texas"

Texas is a right to work state. The unions have limited power.

There's a reason the population of Texas is growing while the population of NY (minus immigrants) is going down.

Anonymous said...

'How about firing poor performers!'

How about start with not giving them performance incentives?

There are a lot of hard working DSNY employees. But we have them working inefficiently and in dangerous conditions. Automated trucks that lift up garbage cans reduce needed crew size to one (which union rules currently prohibit) and reduce workplace injuries by eliminating the need for DSNY employees to handle the trash. Right now more DSNY employees are injured in the line of duty than NYPD. And the city council mandates twice weekly collections in areas where once a week would be sufficient. Most other cities reduce garbage by charging residents for the garbage they produce, at least over some minimal amount, instead of forcing their neighbors to subsidize the extreme wasters.

And yea, those trucks are more expensive, but right now a first year employee might have a starting salary of about 35k, but when you count in performance incentives, overtime, benefits and pension prepayments they cost the city in excess of 100k a year.

Make some common sense changes and you can get the city to the middle of the pack in terms of collection costs.

Anonymous said...

Maybe they should bring in some nice old-school Italian fellas to reform the garbage industry.

Oh, wait ... um, right.