Garbage pickup as Elgin residents have known it in many years is about to change – sooner than you think.
Bud’s Sanitary Service LLC (BSS) will, in the coming weeks, be providing one 96-gallon trash toter per residence and business as part of a plan presented last week to the Elgin City Council. Owner Daryl Guthard told the council at their June meeting that the company, which serves a number of communities in and around the area, will be making the move to more automation with their trucks.
To do that, he said the company will begin utilizing 96-gallon toters.
Guthard said the switch is being done, in large part, due to the labor shortage. By making the change, the goal of the company is to help ease the work load for employees.
“We’ve got to make a change, otherwise we’re not going to be in business,” he said about the new toter system.”
To cover the change, the company will implement, once a new contract is signed later this year, a three percent ‘cost of living’ increase to the rates charged to customers. He said the increase in fees charged customers will be five cents a month every month for the next five years.
After that time, a review will be conducted to determine whether fees can be decreased, stay the same or rise.
“I know it’s a change,” Guthard said. “Some people are going to love it, some are going to hate it. In a year, all are going to love it.”
At the request of Mayor Mike Schmitt, BSS will attempt to deliver toters to each residence inside the city limits. Currently, BSS provides trash pickup service to 358 accounts, 299 of which are residential. In business since 1980, the business covers a nine-county area.
For more information on the toter system and other city council business, please read this week’s edition of the Elgin Review.
