Public sector union efficiency, no doubt.
So, essentially this became a massive welfare tax.
If people are stupid enough to reject God as a basic tenets of their life, how is it that they think they’re smart enough to do anything else!
Not all city officials were on board with this new plan.I think it is important to give credit to the resistance. From the article,
“But city officials had two models to choose from. They could maintain a level of competition among haulers, or they could award exclusive contracts to haulers for designated sectors of the city. In a 2012 report, then-city administrative officer Miguel Santana recommended the former.”
“ ‘A non-exclusive franchise preserves an open, competitive marketplace which is the most significant factor in maintaining price controls,’ ” Santana wrote.
I guess in LA that makes him sort of a hero.
Tammany Hall lives on. Along with Jerry Brown’s welfare state and vote generating machine.
My city is in the process of changing trash handling. Right now, we buy a sticker for $1.00 that is placed on each 40 lbs of trash. Curbside recycling (which is a complete waste of time and resources but makes liberals feel good) is free.
For that reason alone, we fill our blue recycle bin.
It turns out that 25% of residents never affix stickers to their bags and their trash still gets picked up.
They are switching to city owned large wheeled bins. One for trash, one for recycling. There will be some sort of combined charge for everything.
Since, like most cogent thinkers, I do what’s in my economic best interests, the recycle bin will go completely and forever unused.
Where’s a volcano when ya need it?
$825 (nee $389) EACH or is that amount for the whole building? If it is the latter, then these people have no reason to complain - less than $20 per week per homeowner for garbage disposal is a bargain.
If it is the former, then they are most definitely being ripped off.
Of course, my previous post was predicated on the assumption that the trash service would be reliable and good...
There’s no problem so great, that government can’t make even worse.
Prices for recycled raw materials have crashed in recent years. Our local recycling program is actually LOSING MONEY on everything but aluminum.
But the feel-good virtue signalers continue to run the mandated program at a loss.
“””How Los Angeles Socialized Recycling… And Ruined It”””
It depends upon the objectives behind the change.
LA probably considers it a great success as it likely added hundreds of jobs to the system and created hundreds of committed voters to keep the LA Communists in power.
Public employee unions.
The issues in this article aside, in modern America the fetish to recycle, and to never throw anything away more generally, has almost reached the level of mental illness.
Yet, I read not where the angered masses were dropping their reason for disdain on front steps of the seat of power...
“You WANT the refuse LA govt well, now you GOT the refuse...”. Pu$$y Left coast (pun intended).
"...o how did this get so screwed up? Well, the objectives were noble, and state-mandated in part. The city wanted to reduce landfill waste by encouraging more recycling, it wanted to instill a measure of uniformity in what had been a largely unregulated private industry, it wanted haulers to get rid of exhaust-spewing wrecks and invest in green trucks, and it wanted employees to be paid at least the city’s living wage of $12.73 an hour.
No problems so far..."
No problems so far? NO PROBLEMS SO FAR? What planet do they live on? Oh, that's right, a statist, socialist planet. Here are the problems:
1.) "...objectives were noble..." (Objectives for trash removal should be utilitarian, not noble)
2.) "...state-mandated..." (What could go wrong there?)
3.) "...instill a measure of uniformity in what had been a largely unregulated private industry..." (Because "private industry is a non-sequitur)
4.) "...get rid of exhaust-spewing wrecks and invest in green trucks..." (exhaust-spewing BAD, green trucks GOOD but not at all cost effective)
1.) "...employees to be paid at least the city’s living wage of $12.73 an hour..." (Because we know, from real-life experience, that a "living wage" makes everything more profitable and efficient)
See, this could be another OBJECT example of how more government is BAD, but they will hide and obscure this, and the next time a simliar thing comes up...they will trip on this again. And it will be a lot of people "wondering" again.
Here’s your problem: “The Times reports that the city was faced with the choice of, “maintaining a level of competition among haulers, or they could award exclusive contracts to haulers for designated sectors of the city.”
“Exclusive contracts” is just another way of saying political patronage for favored contractors. Probably a lot of Equal Opportunity contracting too.
Talk about a mess: In the UK you have to have twelve (12) different tubs for different recycle stuff.
And the prices they are paying have at least doubled, sometimes going up to four times the previous cost. Service is down, costs are up and property managers are angry.
Of course, the managers and others will continue to vote Rat in order to fix the problem.
Once every two weeks or so, I fill my pickup bed with bags of trash and haul it myself to the nearest county recycle place about 5 miles away. Kitchen garbage we compost for the garden or feed it to the chickens.
There are no direct charges when dropping off the trash. Country taxes cover the cost of the recycling center.
Easy peasy.