by Dennis Dalman
The St. Joseph City Council is expressing concerns about increasing costs of waste-hauler service to the city and agreed to call for bids for that citywide service.
Currently, there is one service that contracts with St. Joseph – Republic Services for trash and recycling pick-ups. Its corporate headquarters are in Phoenix, Ariz., although it serves places throughout the United States, including many Minnesota cities.
Three years ago, St. Joseph called for bids for hauling services. Four haulers submitted bids, and the bid from Republic Services was the one accepted by the city, said St. Joseph Mayor Rick Schultz.
But in recent years, the hauling service began to escalate in price. Schultz said that is largely because the amounts of curb-side items during spring and fall clean-up days has hugely increased. He also noted that Republic Services is feeling pressure because the market for selling picked-up recyclables to China is now virtually non-existent.
One reason the curb-side pick-up has increased in sheer tonnage is because some out-of-towners bring their cast-offs to friends’ or acquaintances places in St. Joseph. Schultz said some have been caught doing just that.
For waste hauling (garbage pick-up), the city collects garbage-bill payments from residents and then pays Republic for its services.
The city council agreed to call for bids now because a hauler must be designated by Jan. 1, 2021.
Author: Dennis Dalman
Dalman was born and raised in South St. Cloud, graduated from St. Cloud Tech High School, then graduated from St. Cloud State University with a degree in English (emphasis on American and British literature) and mass communications (emphasis on print journalism). He studied in London, England for a year (1980-81) where he concentrated on British literature, political science, the history of Great Britain and wrote a book-length study of the British writer V.S. Naipaul. Dalman has been a reporter and weekly columnist for more than 30 years and worked for 16 of those years for the Alexandria Echo Press.