Video: Garbage Tax AKA “Pay As You Throw” Meeting

Posted by brainflation on Tuesday, March 9, 2010 · 5 Comments 

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Part 2

Filed under East Hartford, Town Council, Videos · Tagged with , , ,

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5 Responses to “Video: Garbage Tax AKA “Pay As You Throw” Meeting”
  1. Bob Jensen says:
    March 10, 2010 at 9:51 am

    I’ve never been more embarrassed of my city. This Pay-As-You-Throw system is so fair — why should I be paying the same disposal costs as my wasteful neighbors. I reduce, reuse, recycle — I should be rewarded, and that’s exactly what PAYT would do. Recyclers would pay LESS than non-recyclers. As it stands, we’re all paying the same amount — through our property taxes — for trash, a policy that is insane. Imagine if we did that we electricity — or groceries. With PAYT, East Hartford would save hundreds of thousands a year in reduced disposal costs. We’d be helping the environment. And if our property taxes were reduced 2% — as the Mayor promises — then folks who recycled and reduced their trash could wind up paying less, not more, under PAYT. Remember, people, you’ll go from throwing away 4, 5, or 6 bags of trash a week, to just 1 or 2 — if you pay even the minimal amount of attention to recycling. Here WAS our chance to stand up as a smart, progressive, and compassionate community. Instead, the world is laughing at us today.

    Reply
    • brainflation says:
      March 10, 2010 at 10:33 am

      The problem with Pay As You Throw is that it has zero correlation to the actual disposal costs of the trash and that it is a punitive system. The Role of government is not to force its citizens to do what a select few think is right. Recycling is good and I certainly wish East Hartford recycled more and I hope the blue barrels will increase our recycling, but there is no difference between Pay As You Throw to force less garbage disposal and $5/gallon gasoline taxes to force less gasoline consumption.

      You simply cannot use an argument that the town will reduce its taxes when every dollar of reduction comes from another tax. Our taxes increase any way you look at it.

      Reply
      • Bob Jensen says:
        March 10, 2010 at 12:08 pm

        What no one seems to get is that PAYT is a page right out of the fiscal conservate playbook. My trash is my private property. I should be responsible for getting rid of it. I should have to pay to get rid of it. If I want to take steps to reduce it — by recycling, composting, taking my name off of junk mail lists, whatever — I can do that, and that’ll allow me to cut down on my costs. If I don’t want to recycle, then I should have to pay more than my tree-hugging neighbors, just like I have to pay more to feed my early model SUV. The overall effect for the City, will be a cost savings in the hundreds of thousands per year, money that can be redirected to rebuilding our city.

        Reply
        • brainflation says:
          March 10, 2010 at 12:24 pm

          Again, there is no cost savings. Every dollar “saved” is dwarfed by the dollars spent on the bags.
          If you want an equitable distribution of trash costs than all of the 16400 households receiving service should pay an equal share of the fixed service costs and a prorated share of the tipping fees based on the weight of their garbage.

          There is nothing conservative about this plan.

          Reply
  2. jakfox says:
    March 16, 2010 at 4:16 pm

    What is this, the town from ‘Footloose’? It’s like watching the town meeting scene and replacing the satan-fueled ‘dancing’, with the satan-fueled ‘Pay-As-You-Throw’.

    It’s a disposal program, not the decision to declare war on a neighboring town. Also, this town holds itself in pretty high esteem. The readiness and ability to dismiss 300+ success stories because (with noses held high) “those other towns could never know what it’s like to be us”.

    Lastly, what in the world is the deal with the old man. I thought for sure that he was kidding through most of his “questioning”. Could he possible by any more of a walking cliche for a stereotypical, “back in my day”, anti-change, old man? You better wheel him back to his room before 9:00 pm so he can take his pills. Get him off the board.

    Reply

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