Trash Wars

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Comment by Ellen on February 8, 2010 at 10:36am

Comment by Ellen on February 8, 2010 at 10:35am

Comment by Ellen on February 8, 2010 at 10:27am

This, I will be watching again this year, the unethical dumping grounds of trash at the huge Burmese refugee complexs at Twin Oaks, Autumn Woods, and lord only knows where else these refugees are dumping here in fort Wayne. They have been just pitching everything outside their back doors into a creek (

hey, Abby, this creek/ditch runs into the St. Marys river"to boot"), fields next to the complex where their children run barefoot through glass, dirty diapers, food containers, etc. Dumpsters are provided, but refugees are following their culture of "pitch-it, ditch-it" mentality.

Comment by Ellen on December 12, 2009 at 10:05am

Stupid, stupid waste of resources!!!!! Leaves should not be treated as trash!

Published: December 12, 2009 3:00 a.m.
City in rush to pick up leaves
Hopes to finish job by Christmas
Benjamin LankaThe Journal GazetteAdvertisement

Poor weather and an early heavy leaf fall have put Fort Wayne’s leaf collection crews close to two weeks behind schedule.


But the city is hopeful crews can catch up quickly and is confident the work will be done before Christmas, possibly next week.


The crews this week completed their final collection in central Fort Wayne and moved to the second – and final – sweep of the southern part of the city.


Crews were originally scheduled to have completed the leaf collection of the entire city this week.


Frank Suarez, city spokesman, said the crews were slowed slightly this week as more than half of the team had to work on keeping roads clear of ice and snow. Collecting frozen leaves also caused delays.


Despite that, he said the city believes the work should be done as soon as next week.


“We definitely think we’ll be done with it before Christmas,” he said.


Adding extra days to the collection might add some costs, but Suarez said that information was not available as of Friday afternoon.


He said the city administration thinks the south and north can be complete in one week because of the heavy leaf collection in the northern part of the city during the first sweep. The hope is that collection got most of the leaves from the area so the second pass will be quicker.


Crews will not work today but will be back on the streets Monday. A full list of the neighborhoods where leaves will be collected can be found online at www.cityoffortwayne.org. The list is updated daily.


As of Friday afternoon, the leaf crews have hauled nearly 4,000 loads of leaves weighing a combined 13,283 tons.


blanka@jg.net

Comment by Ellen on December 9, 2009 at 7:15pm

Thanks Dave, and you are very welcome!

Comment by Ellen on December 9, 2009 at 7:13pm

More idiocy over the Pontiac transfer/recycling center, SE community does not seem to understand the terms; transfer, waste, sort, recycle, reduce.

Published: December 9, 2009 3:00 a.m.
Site for sorting out garbage trashed at council meeting
Benjamin LankaThe Journal Gazette

The city’s next trash hauler will face strong opposition if it wants to use a local transfer station.


More than 50 south-side residents attended the City Council meeting Tuesday to express opposition to having garbage transferred through their part of town. The large crowd cheered in unison as a petition with thousands of signatures was presented to the council.


Wayne Township Trustee Rick Stevenson has been leading an effort to prevent the use of the transfer facility for residential garbage. He and 10 other people spoke to the council during its public-comment section.


“I stand against garbage in any neighborhood,” he said.


The Fort Wayne Board of Zoning Appeals approved a $2.5 million plan in September 2008 to convert a former foundry at 2509 E. Pontiac St. into a solid-waste transfer station. The station was to collect garbage from haulers, sort out materials of value and send the waste to a landfill.


No one from the public opposed the station at the public hearing.


The company received its permit from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in July. The permit requires that every load brought into the station also leave it. The center’s floor must be completely cleared within 24 hours.


But Stevenson and others said the station was touted as a place to collect recycling, not residential garbage.


This year the city took competitive proposals for its garbage collection service. The cheapest proposal, from startup Earth First, would have used that transfer station before shipping its garbage to a Jay County landfill.


Other companies that bid on the service also reportedly planned to use the transfer station. The city eventually signed a one-year extension with current trash hauler National Serv-All but plans to seek bids next year.


Many of the speakers complained the trash would smell, bring rodents and create health hazards.


They also questioned whether such a facility would be permitted in other parts of the city.


The residents’ effort had some immediate success as two members of the council said they would not support putting residential garbage into a city neighborhood.


Councilman Glynn Hines, D-6th, said he was told the transfer site would be used only for commercial garbage and recycling. He told the group he would fight to keep residential trash out of their area.


“I am totally against any municipal waste being disposed in our neighborhood,” he said.


Councilman John Shoaff, D-at large, also said he would oppose garbage traffic in a neighborhood and added that the city needs to work better with residents in making decisions that affect neighborhoods.


Bob Kennedy, director of public works, said the city intends to include residents and others as it looks for a waste hauler.


Kennedy oversees the city’s solid waste department.


Before the end of the year, he said the city hopes to create a committee of neighborhood representatives, council members and others to examine what garbage service would be best for city residents.


blanka@jg.net

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Comment by Dave Terpstra on December 9, 2009 at 1:01am

That is amazing. We can take comfort in the fact that the insanity is real and very apparent by the pictures. I have thought of one of my uncles many years ago with his garbage disposal. It was mainly a burn pile and trash hole in the back, but for the most part all he ever disposed of was paper and wood, most of his life there was little or no plastic. Times have changed but people don't want to accept the fact that we are filling the world with foreign materials.

I have used leaves for years for mulch and have had stellar gardens as a result. I have to admit that originally I just didn't want to pay for the paper bags required for the collection, but as I have grown in the sustainable movement it has occurred to me over and over again that the most cost effective solution is often the most environmentally friendly as it is usually the least wasteful!

Thanks for the information

Comment by Ellen on December 6, 2009 at 9:44am

Published: December 6, 2009 3:00 a.m.
Don’t let site WASTE AWAY
New business raises controversy, should raise awareness

Clint Keller | The Journal Gazette

Heavy equipment sits ready to put sorted loads into waiting trucks for transport.

Advertisement



Photos by Clint Keller | The Journal Gazette

Trucks are beginning to make deliveries at the Summit Recycling and Transfer on Pontiac Street. Recyclable materials will be sorted and sold, and any remaining debris will be loaded on a tractor-trailer and hauled to a landfill.




The machine on the left is a sorter that will separate trash from recyclables.
The move was reminiscent of Kanye West storming the stage before Taylor Swift could accept her trophy at the 2009 MTV awards. Wayne Township Trustee Rick Stevenson swiped the microphone from a stunned Bruce Warshauer, who was ready to answer questions about the new recycling and transfer station he runs.


The ambush by Stevenson happened at a town hall meeting last month at the Samuel Walker Community Center about the new operation at 2509 E. Pontiac St. His crusade against the business, which he calls a dump, shows that although the city’s effort to rebid its garbage contract fell through, the issue is still spurring plenty of controversy.


For residents living close to the recycling and transfer center, only time will confirm whether it will be the good neighbor the owners claim. But a potential benefit for all residents is that the station could encourage more competition among trash contractors, leading to better rates and service.


Summit Recycling and Transfer is co-owned by Warshauer and Jerry Henry – Mayor Tom Henry’s brother. The partners announced plans for the station in 2008, but the company received little attention until city officials announced an upstart business, Earth First, was the top contender for the garbage contract. Earth First’s plan called for using Summit Recycling and Transfer to process Fort Wayne’s garbage and recycling before hauling the waste to a landfill outside Allen County.


All other interested garbage companies – except the current contractor, National Serv-All – also planned to use Summit. But Earth First also proposed giving Henry and Warshauer a stake in Earth First in exchange for office space on Summit’s property. Henry ultimately turned down an ownership stake, and Earth First’s office will not be on Pontiac, but the proposal raised concerns.


And it brought attention to the recycling and transfer station because Earth First’s plans called for garbage trucks to haul waste daily to the center, where it would be dumped, then loaded onto semi trucks.

Boring but important
Last year Henry and Warshauer conducted a public meeting at the Pontiac library branch and shared a PowerPoint presentation about their plans to invest $3.5 million to redevelop the brownfield site with neighborhood leaders. They spoke with City Councilman Glynn Hines, who represents the area; Cherise Dixie, the city’s southeast neighborhood advocate; and leaders representing all the active neighborhood associations near the property.


They heard nary a complaint to the plan.


“We built exactly what we said we were going to build,” Warshauer said. “The mission hasn’t changed from what we presented to the BZA.”


Summit Recycling did not need a change of zoning to operate the station, but a special-use permit from the Board of Zoning Appeals was necessary.


The BZA granted the permit after a hearing in September 2008.


The company was also awarded a permit from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in July.


The environmental permit-application process required public notices, public review of the permit application and a 60-day period for public comment.


“IDEM doesn’t hand these out like valentines. We had to go through a very extensive process,” Henry said.


There were no objections to the project until more than a year after it was proposed. Not a single concern was voiced until well after the needed permits were granted and the station was built.


The objections led by Stevenson come far too late. Summit Recycling and Transfer is already open for business.


Local planning, zoning and permitting decisions are arcane and boring – until someone wants to build something objectionable near your property. The accusations that Henry and Warshauer were secretive about their plans are without merit. A story about the proposal ran on the front page of The Journal Gazette’s Metro section on Sept. 28, 2008.

Stevenson’s role
Much of Stevenson’s mission as trustee is looking after the interests of the underserved. Accusations that he is overstepping his authority are off base. But questioning why he waited so long to protest and why his attack seems more focused on Earth First, the bidder for the city’s garbage contract, rather than how Summit Recycling and Transfer will operate is legitimate.


“We’re not against economic development. We’re not against any one company, whether it be Earth First or Summit Recycling,” Stevenson said. “We are just against garbage being dumped in any neighborhood.”


But in a column Stevenson wrote for Frost Illustrated, he refers to the Pontiac Street station as “the Earth First transfer station” and suggests Earth First is responsible for its location.


“At the Town Hall meeting, I told the group about a study I have read, the Cerrell Report.


“This report advises garbage companies that the best place to locate landfills or dumps is in low-income areas. There the garbage companies generally will encounter the least resistance to the facility. That is exactly what Earth First is doing,” he wrote.


Stevenson mentions Earth First four times in the column. He never mentions Summit Recycling and Transfer, the correct owners of the facility he is protesting.


Stevenson said the transfer station will cause odor, litter and traffic congestion problems for neighbors. He also suggests it will lower property values.


He said he will present a petition with more than 2,000 signatures opposing the city’s garbage going to the Pontiac facility to the City Council on Tuesday.

Better than before
The recycling and transfer station may not be every homeowner’s dream neighbor, but it is far better than the former foundry that used to be there.


Foundries are a dirty industry with plenty of potential for air, soil and water pollution. Summit removed about 8,000 tons of hazardous heavy-metal sand from the property.


The property has long been zoned for heavy industrial activity. Stevenson and the neighbors aghast at the prospect of the property being used to process recycling and solid waste appear naïve.


Considering the zoning, it is certain that the property would either remain vacant or become the site of another industrial operation.


By locating the recycling center at the former foundry site, Henry and Warshauer are putting a previously vacant and dilapidated property back on the tax rolls. They have also improved the appearance of the property.


Henry said the one neighbor he did hear from was a woman living near a parking lot across Pontiac from the recycling center. She appreciated that the company cleaned up the parking lot and added landscaping.


Another positive aspect to the recycling and transfer station that should not be ignored is the jobs it will bring to the community. Summit currently has six employees but anticipates hiring up to 30 people. The jobs offer a decent wage (up to $16 an hour for heavy-equipment drivers) and health insurance.

Dump versus transfer station
Opponents of the recycling and transfer station are calling it a dump, but there is a difference. Summit’s permit from IDEM does not allow the company to operate a dump. The permit requires that every load brought into the facility also leave it. The center’s floor must be completely cleared within 24 hours.


Trucks will bring the waste in and pay a fee to Summit based on weight.


Summit workers will sort out everything recyclable for resale. The remaining waste goes to a landfill. For every six trucks that drop off loads at the transfer station, only one truckload will go to a landfill.


“C and D – construction and demolition debris – is very illustrative of what will be recycled here,” Jerry Henry said as he watched a green truck from Veolia Environmental Services drop off a load for recycling last Tuesday.


Henry and Warshauer said that while they provided quotes to four of the five bidders for the city’s garbage contract, and the facility could handle municipal waste if needed, the facility was really built with a focus on recycling.


It is important to note that while Summit’s plan is to make money on the recycling side, it’s likely that any garbage hauler other than National Serv-All winning a local garbage contract will use Summit’s transfer station to haul the refuse somewhere other than the local landfill, owned by Serv-All. Summit would also handle the residential recycling.

Competition is good
“We could handle municipal waste,” Warshauer said. “But we just didn’t think we would get it (the contract) because of the competitive advantage of the local landfill.”


National Serv-All has a built-in competitive advantage when bidding on local garbage contract because it owns the closest landfill accepting residential waste. Competitors have little choice but to pony up extra money to transport solid waste to landfills outside the county. A potential benefit of Summit Recycling and Transfer is that it could open up competition. The increased competition will likely encourage better rates and service in the market.


The transfer station could play a role in Fort Wayne taxpayers getting a decent deal on garbage and recycling contracts when the city rebids the trash and recycling contract in 2010.


A heightened emphasis on recycling would also serve the best interests of city residents.

Stacey Stumpf is an editorial writer for The Journal Gazette. Share this story

Comment by Ellen on October 25, 2009 at 10:02am

766,040 dollars!!!???

As I was watching 2 city workers clean out the storm drains of leaf clutter in the pouring rain, with a brand new truck idling nearby, it reminded me again, the devotion of enormous amounts of labor, money, and pollution to the city’s ritual of removing matter from the city scapes, our lawns(not mine), only to replace it from other sources.
Why are people paying to have leaves, and such removed from their lawns; leaves are a free commodity; then paying for it again in bags, or in bulk as treated compost to spread back over their lawns and gardens?
Are there alternatives? Yes!
MOW leaves to return organic matter to the soil.
MULCH leaves in bins or piles to create high quality humus for gardening or landscaping.
CREATE large areas where leaves can lay where fallen. People around here have lots of trees, and also have expansive park-like lawns to let leaves lay evenly distributed.
This lessons the need for specialized collection systems(vehicles) and centralized composting facilities, and leaves left are a valuable product that enhances the soil to increase the growth, and health of yards or gardens.

Comment by Ellen on October 25, 2009 at 9:55am

October 25, 2009 3:00 a.m.
Trash fee funds pickup, salaries
Benjamin LankaThe Journal GazetteAdvertisement

Breakdown
Here is a look at what the $11.24 monthly garbage fee finances:

Garbage collection…$8.12

Recycling collection…$1.12

Leaf collection…$0.92

Garbage carts…$0.73

Administrative costs…$0.26

Billing costs…$0.09

While it is listed simply as “Garbage and Recycling Fee” on residents’ bills, the $11.24 people pay each month goes to more than that.


In fact, the city has raised about $7 million more in fees than it has paid to Serv-All since the company started as the exclusive garbage and recycling hauler in 2000.


The city will spend about $235,000 on salaries and benefits for the three employees in the department.


Matt Gratz, solid waste manager, is paid from the fees, as is Wendy Barrott, the city’s director of energy and environmental services. Barrott leads the city’s green efforts, including finding ways to reduce energy costs.


The fee also pays $766,040 toward the fall leaf collection.


Though the city reduced this service last year to save money, the amount being paid from garbage fees did not drop.


The final large expense is $170,000 transferred to City Utilities to cover the billing of the garbage fee.


blanka@jg.net

Source: City of Fort Wayne Share this story

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