City to stop giving out trash bags

Exception will be made for elderly and disabled residents

Tom Sharpe | The New Mexican

6/20/2008 - 6/21/08

The rising cost of oil, increased automation of city trash collection and concerns about the environment mean most Santa Fe residents no longer will get free trash bags.

The city of Santa Fe announced Friday that as of July 1 it will quit giving away bags to residential customers, except for the elderly and disabled.

Some 30 years ago, the municipal government began distributing 1.5-millimeter-thick bags to keep customers from using thinner bags that tore and scattered garbage on city streets.

Efforts to end the program in recent years have been stifled by public outcries. But this year, the city's Public Utilities Committee unanimously but quietly approved dropping the program. Last month, the City Council tacitly approved the decision when it adopted the 2008-09 municipal budget.

Language tucked into the budget ordinance authorized administrators to eliminate "inefficiencies" that included the distribution of bags.

"It comes up just about every other year," said Solid Waste Management Division Director Bill DeGrande, who proposed ending the program earlier this year. "But there are some different circumstances this time."

In the first place, he said, 97 percent of city residents put their garbage in 95-gallon plastic containers that are wheeled to curbside where they can be mechanically lifted and emptied into trucks that require only a single operator.

The thicker bags no are longer needed with the automated system, said DeGrande. In fact, he added, that there is no requirement to package garbage in plastic bags before it's put in the containers.

Secondly, he said, the price of the petroleum-based bags has skyrocketed by nearly 57 percent in the last year — meaning the city would have to pay $16.40 per box of 104 bags. Last year, the city handed out about 11,700 boxes. That means the total cost to buy from the city's most recent supplier, Resourceful Bag & Tag of Chicago, would rise to $192,000 from $122,000.

"Now they're quoting on a weekly basis because the prices keep jumping with the market," DeGrande said. "It's just become prohibitively expensive and, with the automation, it's really not necessary anymore."

The only exceptions will be elderly and disabled customers. They will be able to continue getting free boxes of trash bags if they fax a note from their doctor to 955-2217 or send it to the Solid Waste Management Division, 1142 Siler Road.

An estimated 400 to 500 elderly and disabled customers who are not able to wheel the bins to curbside get their garbage picked up by hand. If the customer has given permission for city crews to come onto their private property, garbage collectors will enter their property and carry their garbage bin or bags to a special truck.

About 1,000 other residential customers in the older parts of town do not yet have automated garbage pickup or plastic bins, because the city continues to use three-man crews and old-fashioned rear-loading garbage trucks on these narrow, often one-way streets. However, DeGrande said these customers will be issued new bins for automated collections by the end of June, so they will no longer be eligible for free plastic bags as of July 1.

Free bags will remain available through June to anyone who has not picked up a box since July 1, 2007. DeGrande said he doesn't know how many boxes are left, but "I believe we have enough to see us over the next two weeks."

City Councilor Carmichael Dominguez had spoken against axing the giveaway program two years ago. But this year, he said, he was won over by arguments over the increasing costs of the bags, their obsolescence due to the automated system and the environmental costs of using so much plastic.

"One thing that we need to consider is cutting down on plastic bags just in general," he said. "It's important that we recognize the harm that it does to the environment."

Councilor Rebecca Wurzburger, chairwoman of the Public Utilities Committee, said the committee not only voted to end the plastic-bag giveaway a couple of months ago; members again voted this week to have the Solid Waste Management Division notify customers of the change.

"With the city moving toward reducing our carbon footprint and plastic" and with Councilor Chris Calvert proposing the city restrict the use of plastic bags by groceries and other stores, she said, "it just seems rather hypocritical for the city to be continuing to give out bags when we don't really need them."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.