[From phillyburbs.com, Mar 13, 2024]
'Sticker shock' for Bucks County towns bidding trash contracts since pandemic. Here's why
Bucks County residents and municipalities are finding that since the pandemic, trash removal has gotten quite expensive.
In Bristol Borough, Manager James Dillon said the cost of trash collection went up 70% in the past year after it had been stable for several years under a previous contract that began in 2016.
The increase is hitting or will hit many municipalities as they end long contracts that were signed before 2020 and COVID, and by post-pandemic impacts on costs that often are passed to residents through taxes and fees.
Some in Bucks County also pay for their own trash pickup and those contracts are also on the rise, industry officials said.
Bristol's seven-year long contract with J.P. Mascaro & Sons expired last year and Mascaro was the lowest bidder to renew the contract which provides trash removal service two days a week, with recyclables picked up one day per week per household.
But the rates went up from $395 to $675 per unit per year, Dillon said.
Middletown Township provides two-day-a week service to its residents through its contract with Waste Management.*
Another trash hauler, McCullough Rubbish Removal of Morrisville, said it only deals with individual clients, working in municipalities where people pick their own trash removal service, like Lower Makefield.
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Even though I am retired and did not have a salary last year, I did receive a $4,132 stipend for being a Newtown Supervisor. That is considered "earned" income, so I must pay 1% of that as resident EIT in 2022. I guess I "earned" that, considering that in 2022 I spent a total of 527 hours (an average of 44 hours per month) engaged in official Supervisor activities!