Dear WECA Neighbors
– It is officially summer and we hope you are enjoying the start of the season
(and exciting soccer games of the World Cup)! Our Neighbor Resources Coordinator
at the City of Rockville has shared some information below on changes coming next
month to our recycling and refuses services, which will affect many of us in
the West End. If you have further questions, please attend or watch the Mayor
and Council meeting tomorrow, Monday, June 23rd or contact the City
of Rockville Department of Public Works.
****
The Department of
Public Works will brief the Mayor and Council during their Monday night
meeting June 23, at 7 p.m., and provide the mayor and
councilmembers with information regarding a new recycling and refuse program that will
begin the week of Monday, July 28. Rockville's existing
program entails collecting curbside recycling, refuse and yard waste generated
by our resident customers; cart delivery and pick up; and the four special
collections that are scheduled by appointment: bulk refuse, electronics, scrap
metal and household hazardous materials. The City will move from a
five-days-per-week, eight-hours-per-day schedule by eliminating Friday
collections and moving to a four-days-per-week, 10-hours-per-day schedule.
The new schedule and routes realize the following resource savings:
- · Greater collection efficiency allows fewer driving routes. Currently, the City has four collection crews for recycling and four more for refuse each day.
- · Having fewer routes eliminates the need to replace at least two collection vehicles. These two vehicles currently cost approximately $406,000.
- · Reducing collection days to four days each week (Monday through Thursday) also means avoiding the need for overtime pay for staff working on City holidays that periodically occur on Fridays. These days include New Year's Day (on a Friday in 2016), Fourth of July, Veteran's Day (on a Friday in 2016), and Christmas Day (on a Friday in 2015).
- · There will also be modest fuel and time savings by avoiding having to drive the collection vehicles between the Gude Maintenance Yard and the collection routes at the beginning and end of the eliminated fifth collection day, and through the reduction of number of trips to the Montgomery County Transfer Station and the recycling drop-off facility.
- · Except for sliding weeks (when collections slide to the next weekday due to a City holiday falling on Monday through Thursday), Friday collections will be eliminated. Residents currently scheduled for Friday collections will no longer have to avoid or delay leaving town for a weekend or prevailing upon the kindness of neighbors to ensure their carts are brought to and removed from the curb on Fridays.
- · Similarly, the new schedule completely eliminates the need for the collections staff to work and customers to bring carts to and from the curb on "sliding Saturdays."
These budget
savings will help to offset other increased costs and help to keep the monthly
refuse service fee (currently $31 per month or $372 per residence per year) as
low as possible.
A few weeks prior
to the start of the new schedule, staff will undertake a direct mailing to
those customers who will be changing collection days.
Designing new routes to be as efficient as possible required that more residents change
their days than just the existing Friday customers.
To watch the Mayor
and Council meeting live or view Videos on Demand, visit www.rockvillemd.gov/rockville11
.
For more
information, please contact The City of Rockville Department of Public Works,
or:
Rocio Snowdy
City Manager's
Office
Neighborhood
Resources Coordinator
240.314.8345
Rsnowdy@rockvillemd,gov
