Week 4 ... Day 4

Late again ...
 it's after 5:00 PM in Kipling Forest.  Oh, and when the paper was picked up, the Roving Reporter claimed that it was put into a bin on the truck that also contained glass/plastic/cans.  I was doubtful, because I know that the new shiny recycle trucks have dual compartments.  "No," he said, "I watched them put my papers into the bin.  I could see the other types of recyclables in the same bin, and when they were dumped and compressed,  I could hear glass being crunched." 
Trucks were still circling the streets in the area after 5:45. "Here they come again," he said.  "And they're backing up!" Fifteen minutes later, he reported, "Oh my, here they come again!" (I'd hate to see their fuel bill.)
The city now owes each household $.13.

There was a letter in yesterday's UANews that addressed the issue of yard waste collection for those residents with medical exemptions.  Under the new system, these persons need to take their yard waste to the curb.  So, if gardening is their therapy, they need to lug it down their driveways or hire someone to do it.   Under the old system, everything was picked up garage-side.  The contract negotiated by the city did not include any provision for garage-side pickup of yard waste and recyclables for those with medical exemptions, so this is what they're stuck with.

Also, under the old system, if you were temporarily incapacitated (e.g. you broke a leg), you could call the city and the city workers would pickup all of your stuff garage-side until you had recovered. 
At no cost. 
There is no provision for this in the new contract.

Another perk was that residents could order "roll out" dumpsters from the city on a short-term basis, for example, if they were moving and wanted to clean house.
That program has been terminated.

Finally, another perk was that if your service day was Monday and you were going on vacation on Sunday, you could call the city and have trash and recyclables all picked up on the previous Thursday or Friday.
No more.

You didn't know about these perks?  Neither did I. 
Now, it's irrelevant. 

Week 4 ... Day 3

No new news.

Week 4 ... Day 2

Watch out for the "Orange Card!"  You can earn it if your trash or recyclables weren't picked up for a reason.  Apparently the most prevalent seems to be "Not on curb on time."  Some don't have anything checked off.

And ... catch your breath .. Kentwell, Ardleigh, Riverhill, Millwood, Edgevale, Ridgecliff, and South Dorchester were either completely missed or with scattered recyclables as of 8:20 PM.   

We're now at $.12 per household
owed to us by the city.

Week  4 ... Day 1

Three stories for today ...

How are our residents with medical waivers being treated?

From one Roving Reporter, "My parents have a medical waiver.  Last week, no one showed up to pick up on Wednesday (their day), so my mom brought both trash and recyclables back into the garage.  She called the City Manager's office.  Jana Bradford was very helpful and did contact the contractor and logged the complaint.  Recycling -- but not trash -- was picked up on Thursday, so my mom brought the trash back into the garage on Thursday night.  Friday, the trash was picked up."

Under the city's waiver approval process, these residents could have been asked to make their confidential medical records available (click here for the medical exemption form) in order to get their garage-side service.  
And this is how they're being treated?

Garage-side pickup of recyclables for medical exemptions is not stipulated in the contract. As a result, prehaps the contractor assumed that recyclables would be picked up at the curb.  This would partially explain why UA city employees are still making recycle runs, and why these homes are experiencing unpredictable service.    

And ... also, for houses with medical waivers, the big "packers" are backing up the length of residents' driveways.  Residential driveways are not constructed to receive this kind of treatment week-after-week. 
Ironically, during NBC Channel 4's newscast last Thursday, Mr. Brockman, the reporter, just happened to be standing in front of just one such occurrence.  This is not an isolated incident.    
So ... who is going to pay for driveway replacement?

Here's a story on my street, although it has nothing to do with a medical waiver.  The truck came by and picked up our glass/plastic recyclables.  My daughter, who was out on her scooter, came inside and handed me a broken glass bottle and some shards of glass. "Mom, there's a pile of it in front of our driveway," she said.  So I went outside, and sure enough, there was a trail of glass shards in front of our and our neighbor's house.  I called the complaint number and a very nice man was out within 15 minutes to clean up this spillage.  My daughter rode her scooter to visit a friend a block away, and when she came home, she reported that the trail of glass extended the length of the street as well.

I don't know why this trail of glass is happening.  From what I understand, one reason could be overloading the recycle truck before unloading, causing this spillage.