CROTHERSVILLE
The monthly fee for trash and curbside recycling pickup in Crothersville will not increase for 2017.
But in 2018, residents will see a 2 percent increase in their monthly bill.
On Tuesday night, the Crothersville Town Council unanimously approved a two-year contract for trash and recycling collection with Rumpke of Indiana. The town also sent a bid request to Best Way Disposal, but that company responded with a letter saying it was not submitting a bid at this time.
The town has contracted with Rumpke for trash pickup for at least 18 years and recycling pickup for about six years.
Each month in 2017, the trash and recycling fee will be $9.47, which is what residents currently pay.
In 2018, the monthly bill will increase to $9.66.
Council President Lenvel “Butch” Robinson said Rumpke representative Richard Leslie worked hard to keep the price down as much as possible.
“We try,” Leslie said. “The town has been good to us. The first year, we were able to hold it. The second year is just 2 percent.”
Trash pickup in Crothersville is every Tuesday, while curbside recycling pickup is every other Tuesday. If there’s a holiday on Monday, trash or recycling collection moves to Wednesday.
Residents can place up to three 30-gallon trash bags at the curb or in a trash can to be picked up. If they have more than three bags, they must go to the town hall to purchase a sticker for 75 cents for each extra bag.
Items to be recycled are placed in red bins. Rumpke provided the town with an option to upgrade to 95-gallon recycling carts, but that would have made the monthly fee higher.
The council members agreed it was best to not go with that option because starting this month, town property owners’ utility bills are increasing $3 for the new stormwater user fee. That money will go into a stormwater utility fund to make storm drainage improvements.
Earlier this year, Brownstown upgraded from a recycling bin to a recycling cart, resulting in residents paying $1.20 more per month on their sewer bill.
Rumpke bills Brownstown and Crothersville for trash and recycling collection, and the residents’ monthly fee is based on the number of units.
The Jackson County Solid Waste Management District, which does business as Jackson County Recycling District, provides each of the towns with $7,200 per year toward the cost of recycling as long as the trash goes to a Jackson County landfill. Rumpke takes the recycling to Cincinnati, Ohio.
For every ton of trash that goes into the landfill, Rumpke pays the solid waste management district a dollar, said Debbie Hackman, director of Jackson County Solid Waste Management District.
Hackman’s board has an agreement with Brownstown and Crothersville that if their trash stays in the county, a recycling subsidy will be paid to each town. That money goes into each town’s general fund.
Hackman said the annual amount the towns receive started out at $4,800 a few years ago but has since increased to $7,200. That helps Hackman support local recycling programs, and no tax dollars have to be collected.
Crothersville also will continue to have semiannual large trash pickups — one in May and one in October. The town will pay Rumpke $75 per hour for that service.