Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Trash Talk: The Hinds Heist?

Waste Management is changing a few things for its Byram, Raymond, and Hinds County Service.  Needless to say, people are not too happy if social media is an accurate barometer of public opinion.  



Oddly enough, Waste Management did go this route when the burbs renewed their garbage collection contracts this year.  What changed in Hinds County? 

 Hinds County pays for garbage collection through the collection of property taxes.  Section 19-5-21 of the Mississippi Code states: 

Except as provided in paragraphs (b), (c), (d) and (g) of this subsection, the board of supervisors, to defray the cost of establishing and operating the system provided for in Section 19-5-17, may levy an ad valorem tax not to exceed four (4) mills on all taxable property within the area served by the county garbage or rubbish collection or disposal system. The service area may be comprised of unincorporated or incorporated areas of the county or both; however, no property shall be subject to this levy unless that property is within an area served by a county's garbage or rubbish collection or disposal system. 

 Section d allows Hinds County to charge a higher millage rate: 

The board of supervisors of any county having a population in excess of two hundred fifty thousand (250,000), according to the latest federal decennial census, and in which Interstate Highway 55 and Interstate Highway 20 intersect, may levy, in its discretion, for the purposes of establishing, operating and maintaining a garbage or rubbish collection or disposal system, an ad valorem tax not to exceed seven (7) mills on all taxable property within the area served by the system as set out in paragraph (a) of this subsection. 

The 2020 census stated the population of Hinds County is 227,742 residents, far below the 250,000 threshold for seven mills.  The Board will probably have to cut the garbage collection millage to six mills.  Section (g) states: 

In lieu of the ad valorem tax authorized in paragraphs (a), (b), (c) and (d) of this subsection, the fees authorized in subsection (2) of this subsection and in Section 19-5-17 or any combination thereof, the board of supervisors may levy an ad valorem tax not to exceed six (6) mills to defray the cost of establishing and operating the system provided for in Section 19-5-17 on all taxable property within the area served by the system as provided in paragraph (a) of this subsection. 


Since the county has to cut one mill, Waste Management probably had to cut corners just to make the contract work.  Municipalities can raise fees as needed as happened across the Jackson metro area over the last year but counties are stuck thanks to state law.  

However, the extra garbage cart crap is just that, crap.  Gone will be the days of bagging up pine straw and putting it out on the curb.  Waste Management will require residents to put those bags in a garbage cart.  Unfortunately, customers can't purchase the carts but instead must lease them from Waste Management at nearly $12 per month.   Residents must call their respective public works departments to get relief for yard waste collection.  Good luck with that, right ?


44 comments:

Raif Hollister said...

I’ll have to dust off the burning barrel

Anonymous said...

What makes you think the millage will be changed? Who's watching?

Tweety said...

Just to be above board, the $12 fee for extra can covers the dump fee for the extra trash too. These 96 gal cans are big and require space to store (had to put mine behind garage instead of in it) but they roll fairly easy if you don't load it with rocks.

Anonymous said...

they started this in our county about 6 months ago. I was amazed how many people could not understand the arrow towards street message embossed in the tops of the cans. it took a month for some of these people to place them the correct way and only after the garbage man quit getting out and turning them around.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, this works fine in cities that have separate recycling pickups and separate monthly or quarterly collections for yard waste, but not surprised with the pushback here.

I figured Richards was/is planning to do the same in Jackson once they got the long-term contract. Never saw the point in providing 96-gallon trash cans if they're not going to be using automated collection (unless you've got a buddy who sells 96-gallon trash cans or IT services of course).

Anonymous said...

richards take note...no cart, keep the contract..

Anonymous said...

Automated will work in subdivisions. Automated will never work on rural county roads. Disaster.

Anonymous said...

@4:51 I live in a rural area and it works nice

Anonymous said...

Ya’ll, the entire garbage collection process is just 5 short years away from being fully automated. There is already a prototype Tesla Semi with a garbage truck chassis. The Tesla Semi has a 500 mile range and self driving capability once it is approved by the Feds.
This is a necessary step to get everyone adjusted to the process.

Anonymous said...

@4:39 ...or bodies...

Anonymous said...

@4:51 I live in a rural area ...

Where? Be specific.

Anonymous said...

To have cleaner towns and less health hazzards, you know what makes sense? A policy of picking any garbage that anyone sits out at the curb, regardless of how much or what it is in. Get the garbage OUT of the city -- didn't we learn that in about the 17th century?

Anonymous said...

"Automated will work in subdivisions. Automated will never work on rural county roads. Disaster."

Newsflash, Chauncey! A truck with an automated arm to life and dump containers has no knowledge of whether the can sits in a subdivision or on a remote road.

The county where I live provides the same identical container, picks it up and dumps it mechanically once a week and I live on a rural county road.

A lot of you slugs, as well as Kingfish, have no understanding of escalating prices for diesel, labor, equipment, insurance, comp, benefits, landfill charges and a myriad of other costs associated with operating a successful business.

Anonymous said...

Once again, I am glad I live in the city of Madison.

Anonymous said...

Besides labor this is an easy way for a company to control costs by limiting disposal volume per customer. As is now you can essentially throw away any amount of garbage for the same monthly fee. Now you are limited to one can. From a business standpoint this makes sense. If you took your trash to the landfill yourself yo would be charged by weight so it is no different to expect it at the house.

Anonymous said...

5:23 the first kid getting crushed by your driverless Tesla garbage truck will squash that plan.

Anonymous said...

You go to Kroger and have to check out your own groceries.
You go to the gas station and have to put gas in your own car.
You go to the restaurant and have to pick up your order.
Now, Garbage has to be packed a certain way to be picked up.
Crazy World.

Anonymous said...

Such new instructions may take a long time for some WM customers to comprehend.

WestUnder said...

Typing here as a resident of Jaxson - I would happily live under this new WM regime than the LaMoomba/Richards nonsense inside the city limits.

Even if WM does tighten up a bit on their curbside standards, at least they have some standards, and at least you can count on them to be around for a while and collect regularly. It's tough to enforce standards on others when you can't meet your own obligations - at least WM can meet tote it's half of the load.

The LaMoomba/Richards situation has been working for the last few months I'll admit but nothing about that arrangement and how it came about instills confidence. Take a poll of Jaxson residents and see what the vibe is - negative I bet I'll take the under on that one - the price is wroooong beyotch.

I like what ole Raif said - dust off the burnpile!

Anonymous said...

Littering is about to hit a record high. What about the resistance who throw parties and have extra guests. Christmas is goimg to screw already Hinds voters. Don’t attend Black Friday because that supersized television won’t fit in that green box. The SB is really going to hit hard. If this is what y’all are doing then I guess the state inmates will be very busy. Walmart and Lowes sell these boxes for $100 dollars and WM is about the screw them over. Like Tommy tells
Cole “you stupid”.

Anonymous said...

@7:59
Please keep filling out those captchas so that the self driving AI can learn to discern stairs from crosswalks and fire hydrants from toddlers. Also, keep doing all that Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace stuff so their AI can learn your job.

Also, I am a contractor for iTS and we are working on the second phase of the MSPB Project SEC2 which is to replace 60% of the state workforce with AI. Why? Because approximately 60% of the state workforce is absolutely worthless fat surly dead weight and we all know it.

Anonymous said...

The county where I live provides the same identical container, picks it up and dumps it mechanically once a week and I live on a rural county road.

Which county? Be specific.

Anonymous said...

I notice new w/m cans in Ridgeland in the Ole Towne District. I am wondering if they a have the same program as Hinds County.

Anonymous said...

Let’s all protest and push those green buckets back in the streets. This crap isn’t fair and wasn’t distributed with the voters.

Anonymous said...

You don't own anything, and you are happy.

Anonymous said...

"Which county? Be specific."

Your needle seems to be stuck on specific. What the hell difference does it make? Refuting a claim doesn't require I entertain your nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Eye roll at call City of Jackson Public Works Department.

Anonymous said...

“Residents must call their respective public works departments to get relief for yard waste collection. Good luck with that, right ?”

Yes KF you are telling the truth. I had a discussion with the young lady at the Hinds County Public Works Department in Raymond and I expressed my disappointment about Hinds County not picking up trash and debris on the side of any road, repairing potholes, road shoulders that are decaying and collapsing which can cause damage to your vehicle or personal injuries, and mowing the right of ways. She really couldn’t say anything other than she would get with District 4 Supervisor and let him know along with the person in charge of road maintenance. But here lies the problem. Hinds county has the highest property taxes in the state with the lowest return for our money. And to top it off I was told by a mechanic that Hinds County cannot pay their bills for parts to repair County owned vehicles which includes the trucks that would be used to pick up the rubbish that you have to contact that the county uses to pick up what WM will not pick up. We literally have an issue that’s bigger than what we see on the surface. But, now we have people running our county that are not qualified to run it. I fully understand WM went this way to eliminate a known problem, labor. One man on a truck and all he does is drive.

Anonymous said...

All I'm gonna do is go around the county and pick up two green cans, bring em back home, knock out the bottom of one, take off the top of the other one, stack em and duct tape wm together. Here's your sign.

Anonymous said...

We live on a rural road in southwest Hinds County and learned about this just yesterday from a friend because we do not have Facebook. As far as I know, Facebook is the only place where this change was published. If we had known, we wouldn't have spent over $100 to get a new big rolling garbage can with an attached lid a month ago which we cannot now use to put garbage at the end of our driveway.

As others say, I guess we'll have to resort to burning excess garbage that doesn't fit in the green can. Great. More air pollution and increased fire risk for rural Hinds County.

Anonymous said...

The only folks I'm worried about are the elderly. Will they be able to move a can this large.

Anonymous said...

If WM can't pick up their own can and has to have a truck do it, how do they expect us to pick it up to bring it to the street? Do they really think I'm going to set up ramps twice a week to roll it up into my truck?

It's going to be a real problem for those who are elderly/disabled and for those who don't have a nice smooth short paved driveway to roll it down. When I can't pick it up to put it in my truck and I can't roll it 1/4 mile down a gravel drive and across a cattle gap, it's just going to sit down there in the road, probably in one of those big cages.

Anonymous said...

They just left the cans on the side of the road. Diid not tell us they were coming. My mother is 75 years old and her driveway is gravel 7/10 of a mile long. How is she supposed to lift that heavy can and get it to the road? If she left it on the road all the time someone would take it or destroy it.

Anonymous said...

October 11, 2023 at 6:51 PM, yes, you made an incomplete list of the hidden benefits of Bidenomics. The increasing cost of everything, means the increasing cost of everything, which includes garbage. We are paying for the worthless money being printed to enrich the military industrial arms owners, and all of their supporters.

Anonymous said...

Oh! My goodness!

Suddenly, Waste Management is not the "darling" of trash collection!

There's no surprise that those who have never used a 69 gallon "can" are again terrified yet unable to explain why they can't manage one.

I'm sorry to have to tell you, that most of you created this problem when you supported "privatization". You could have still run your city garbage collection and gotten "the profit" if run correctly. Somehow you actually "fell" for the notion (and still are) that a 'break even" service will be more expensive over time than a "for profit" business. And while both can grow in size more than necessary, at least you'd have proximity and size to make oversight easier and long as you stopped electing a party and elected honorable individuals in your city or town.


As someone who has had a 69 gallon can since 1975, with pick up twice a week, you can do both debris and waste without bags. You can put bags into the 69 gallon can. Of course, some of our storms make that impossible and part of a contract might should include a storm plan where dumpsters would be made available to neighborhoods.

Raccoons, and other feral animals can tear a bag. They can't tear a plastic rolling trash receptacle.

Even elderly people can manage the 69 gallon WM trash can. I've seen 10 and 12 year old boys and girls do it easily.

It's not like 69 gallon jugs. I know, it seems like " magic" that you can more easily roll that much weight. It's not. It's physics. It's how weight is distributed. You don't need a lot of upper body strength to do it.

None of you can dispute the above because it is simply just not possible unless you lie. So you name call and deflect and accuse. That's the state of politics...make a mountain out of a molehill or cry wolf.

Try just getting out and about and opening your eyes while you do!
 
If you went to the Neshoba County Fair on a Friday and just looked along the roads, you'd have seem 69 gallons waste containers everywhere between Carthage and Philadelphia. They were at the ends of even graveled driveways that were sloped down and up. They were at large properties with acreage as well as homes close to the road. They weren't the maroon of WM, and the logo was not prominent, but they were uniform in appearance.

Given the brouhaha, I'm rather stunned that no news station has sent a reporter to a town that has 69 gal. waste "cans" or at least driven around to find one and do film on how it works and how many plastic bags it can hold.

Our elected officials might learn something. Indeed, maybe they could realize that not every dwelling and property is the same or used the same. It could be, since I saw two 69 gal. cans at the end of some driveways, there is a way to fairly make that possible.










Anonymous said...

WM is doomed. Bring back Richards.

Anonymous said...

@ 9:07 AM It's 96 gal can, not 69. Need to get your mind out of the gutter before the self-driving Tesla truck runs you over.

Anonymous said...

@9:07 what about the 96 gallon can?

Anonymous said...

I oppose the 96 gallon rolling cans, I put about 10 gallons of bagged trash out twice a week in a heavy duty 32 gallon can with a flat top, wich allows for a 50 gallon bag of yard debris on top of it: the truck rider throws it in the truck in less than five seconds.

My grandparents composted coffee grounds, egg shells, yard clippings, dog mess, etc. Some of this we could learn to do and recycle the compost into the garden.

Anonymous said...

9:07am
Thanks for sharing your model of a uniform and compliant society, Virgi. 96 gal rolling carts are a bitch to store, to smell and to roll as the wheels get bounced back down from their hard ride back to the ground from being auto-emptied 12 feet in the air. If only we could call Richard's or WM to carry off the Mayor and a couple Council members!

Anonymous said...

Several years ago, my mother lived in Ridgeland. At that time, residents could put any manner of stuff roadside once a week for pickup by the refuse/garbage provider/contractor, who I think was WM. That included couches, chairs, broken lawn mowers, bird houses, ladders, windmills and mannequins. Same was true in Madison with the Waste Management contract.

Anonymous said...

Every or most cities stopped that years ago due to land fields being full & new restrictions. 90% of most cities charge & require scheduling to pick up or even bring by yourself to a land field unless you illegally dump. There are stiff fines now if you are caught dumping.

Anonymous said...

@ 1:28 -

Land fields? 90% of most? Go back to school.

Anonymous said...

I’m just laughing at some of these comments! Bitching about trash, just burn that garbage in your yard, you hillbillies!

We got other important things to worry about, CRIME!

If your ass is kilt/dead trash ain’t a priority!

Just a little humor.


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