Still others have non-exclusive franchises that allow competition among haulers who pay the municipality a franchise fee, a percentage of the gross and other charges.
PANZARELLA WASTE FREE
In some, city departments pick up the trash, while others let customers have free choice among competing private haulers. In Florida, cities and counties take different approaches to commercial garbage. It's kind of a nice, cozy, little deal between haulers and city officials. In the world of garbage, Florida's reputation for restricting customer choice is "one of the worst," says Nick Nicholson, chief executive of The Ecology Group, an Ohio company that manages waste service for companies nationally and in Canada. And government may be profiting most of all. Ayala also feels it gouges small-business people like himself. What Ayala learned from the struggle is that a system designed to make trash pickup efficient has become a behemoth that discourages both competition and recycling. The letter helpfully supplied Waste Management's phone number. If Ayala didn't sign a contract with Waste Management for trash pickup, the letter warned, he could be fined up to $1,000 a day - $5,000 a day for repeat violations - and could be sentenced to up to 60 days in jail. "Refuse collection in the City of Pompano Beach is mandatory and is required to be done by our city contractor," the letter said. Waste Management removed its box, but a few weeks later, Ayala got a letter from the city's acting public works director. He signed with Delta Recycling and terminated his Waste Management contract. And he got even angrier at what happened next. But he got angrier when he discovered he couldn't get out of his Waste Management contract for another 21❂ years. He was angry that Waste Management never told him the plastic straps could be recycled. Why not recycle the straps, packing cardboard and odd bits of office waste paper that filled Ayala's Waste Management box? The salesman said his company could remove it for $100 - a decent savings over what Ayala was paying Waste Management to haul it away.Īyala was all for it. In 1997, a salesman from a recyclables handling company visited his office with a proposition. Once a week, a Waste Management truck carted the refuse away - most recently, for $189 a month. For all those years, his workers tossed vinyl straps from old furniture into a 3-cubic-yard trash container, a "box" in hauling industry jargon. And he explains how, 21❂ years ago, he began learning the rules of trash.įor 13 years, from a concrete building by the railroad tracks and Dixie Highway, Ayala has run The Patio Furniture Hospital, a five-employee, wholesale distributing and furniture-rehab company.
Inside lies a mass of beige and brown patio furniture straps, tangled like seaweed, and a few pieces of cardboard. Jim Ayala lifts the lid on the blue metal bin by the chain-link fence behind his Pompano Beach business.
0 kommentar(er)
