North Aurora looking to cut trash pickup costs
North Aurora trustees are willing to change how trash, brush and leaves are picked up, if it will save residents a little money.
Monday night, they agreed to seek proposals for a new contract that would allow companies to take two days to pick up the town's trash, if needed. They also want to see what would happen to prices if they drop "free" brush and leaf pickup.
In doing so, they hope to get lower sticker prices.
Residents (except those in apartments) pay $3.51 per sticker for a 33-gallon can of trash. They get free pickup of bundled brush and bagged leaves, and twice-a-year "amnesty days" where they can dispose of unlimited junk for free.
But those services are really paid for by the stickers, Bosco said. Nearby Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles, which also use a sticker program, pay $3.11 a sticker. Those towns don't have the junk pickup days. Batavia runs a separate program for brush pickup, and charges a monthly fee to pay for that. Trustees want to know what would happen if they cut it to one junk day.
As for going to two-day-a-week-collection, where part of the town is collected on one day and the other the next, trustees were OK with that. People will get used to it, they figure.
"Because after the first month you live in your house, you are going to know what day your garbage pickup is," Trustee Mark Carroll said.
Carroll suggested going to a monthly, flat bill, noting it can be inconvenient to discover the night before trash pickup that you are out of stickers and have to go to three stores to find one that has them in stock.
Trustee Michael Lowery objected to that, saying it would penalize people like him who recycle much of their trash. He says he puts out a can about every six weeks.
The village does offer a rental 96-gallon toter for $28 a month. That price is about $7 a month higher than people in other towns are charged, Bosco said. If it were cheaper, he speculated, it might be more popular.
If the village cut the bagged leaf pickup, it would still offer its own curbside loose-leaf pickup.
The current, five-year contract with Waste Management expires in May.