Survey: Portlanders losing patience with garbage service
PORTLAND, Ore. – Heather Butler misses weekly trash collection in Portland.
“The biggest thing we have are diapers,” Butler said.
Butler runs Little Feets Daycare from her North Portland home, and said the dirty diapers can make waiting two weeks for garbage collection tough.
“There have been some weeks where it’s a little bit frustrating,” Butler said. “Imagine when it was really hot, it wasn’t all that great.”
Butler said she likes the city’s new emphasis on composting, but she’s less satisfied with garbage service now that weekly trash collection is no more.
She’s not alone.
Many Portlanders are losing patience with the city’s garbage and recycling services, according to a new survey by the city.
Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of curbside composting and the end of weekly trash pickup.
Nearly 3,500 Portland residents took part in the 2012 Community Survey, which was conducted by the city auditor’s office. The results show significantly lower satisfaction with the quality and cost of trash and recycling pickup.
In 2011, 78 percent of North Portland residents surveyed rated the quality of trash service “good” or “very good”. This year, that percentage dropped to 61 – the largest difference in the city from a year ago.
The same goes for cost. Last year, 51 percent of North Portland residents surveyed gave the city high marks for the cost of garbage service. This year, the number dropped 18 percent to just 33.
Both candidates for Portland Mayor said they like how composting is reducing waste, but they’ve both discussed a weekly garbage collection option for those who need it. It’s unclear how much money that would cost, or who would pay for it.
Portland resident Chad Schermerhorn said adapting to the new system was challenging at first, but not anymore.
“Now that we’ve been doing it for a while, it works really well,” he said. “I think that we just need to learn how to do it right and it becomes habit.”
Wheather this program works for the City of Portland or not, people need to realize garbage rates and rules are set by THE CITY. NOT YOUR HAULER. So don't take it out on them. Call a city commisioner and get your opinion voiced.
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I moved back to Portland last May staying in an Apartment until July we had a dumpster now we've moved into a duplex about 3/4 mi. away and have to share a 90 gallon can with our neighbor. I'm in North PDX and the pick up service for the regular can every two weeks is utterly rediculous. We recycle and I do the ant attracting food scraps only that mini container that we have isn't coming inside the house! I use two old coffee cans with lids (I had been using paper bags then dumping the food contents in the compost can prior to pick up days. We have had ants so bad since moving into this house I hate having exposed food out. We won't even discuss the water prices in Portland. The City of Tacoma where I had just moved from wasn't the cheapest but weekly trash service and more budget friendly water service. Though run off prices were slightly out of wack with the whole concept of what you had coming into your home.
So, you're saying that fewer visits and higher costs isn't widely considered to be an improvement in service?
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Aaaaah, more of King Sams legacy.
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@MarkKpic Yes, seems like fewer visits from your hauler but it's not. All haulers used to send three trucks by your house, 2 every week and 1 every other week. The same is still true. I get so tired of people saying they are getting less service for same or more price. I am NOT a fan of the program either, but again, its not your haulers choice. They run a franchise based of if City renews it every couple of years or not if the hauler followed the city's rules - see below:
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BEFORE:
Truck #1 - garbage every week
Truck #2 - recycling every week
Truck #3 - yard debris every other week
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NOW:
Truck #1 - yard debris/food scraps every week
Truck #2 - recycling every week
Truck #3 - garbage every other week
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***IF YOU WANT TO GO GET RID OF FOOD COMPOSTING AND GO BACK TO WEEKLY GARBAGE - CALL A CITY COMMISSIONER! CALL THE NEW MAYOR!!! Again, not your haulers fault.
I used to pay $74.60 for once a week pick up of a 90-gallon regular trash container, and bi-weekly pickup of my yard debris container, which I found somewhat reasonable.  I now pay $103 for bi-weekly pickup of regular trash (90% of my trash), and weekly yard debris (how much yard debris do you think makes it into the container when it is pouring rain every single day?).  Which means I am paying 38% more for half the service.  And the City wants me to sort my food scraps into a tiny little food scrap container, which went in the 90-gallon container as soon as I received it.  My water bill has been $280 a quarter  when my neighbors pay $100-150, after the city installed new water mains 18" from my meter and broke the line to my home.  After going through the ordeal of having a NEW WATER LINE installed, the City was GRACIOUS enough to give me a $25 credit.  BFD!!!  What a freakin' monopoly.  I live alone so I am not putting out a lot of trash nor using a lot of water yet I am getting slammed by these two organizations.  I am absolutely fed up with the two services but being a single homeowner, I cannot do without these services.  Who is regulating the rates these organizations are charging people?!!  How do the elderly retirees make ends meet???  I say both the water bureau and the trash companies (in bed together) be oversighted by a consumer board.  Oh, and don't believe it when the Water Bureau rep tells you they are checking your meter - they only check it ONCE A YEAR and continue to charge you for water/sewer you don't consume.  I have lived in Portland for the past 17 years and trying to find a way back to a developed, organized and fair city to live.  Far far away from this rural dump of a city.Â
 @MKX i just looked up rates in Portland for Garbage and Recycling, and a 90 gallon container is 43.80$ Per Month, standard service(eastside?) and 48$ Per Month, for westside service- (includes terrain charge). So were you talking $103 for one month? Are you jacking up the rates or just confused? here's the link to the website : http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bps/article/402981  Â
   why do people keep making false claims?
 @MKX I have a 32 gallon trash can(with 2 adults and a child) and it costs 28 dollars a month for bi-weekly trash pickup. If you're not filling up the 90-gallon trash can, why not pay for a smaller service and get a smaller can?Â
 @djshimon That's exactly what I had to do - saved a few dollars on the next size smaller.  A family of three using a 32 gallon trash can must be sorting all their trash into recycle bins which I choose not to do.  Trash is trash.  When the trucks come by, they don't even have to get out of the truck anymore, and the leave the cans half way into the street, and loose trash blows across my yard and gets stuck in my landscaping.  The service is dismal and I refuse to do anything more than haul it to the curb, once every two weeks.  I do put cardboard in the cardboard container - but that container rarely gets taken to the street because it simple has very little trash in it. Â
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Home composting and reduced garbage service. Keep garbage on your kitchen counters for all the bacteria to enjoy. All in the name of being green. Bloated sewer rates, random county fees and taxes to recoup money that never really disappeared.  This is only part of the reason we moved out of the Peoples Republic of Portland. Â
Pay more to simply have the service I was paying for - that I am still paying for - restored, ie. weekly garbage pickup?Â
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Give me a break, City of Portland - that is WHY I am full out disgusted. Your mandated changes, taking AWAY weekly service from me - while forcing me to pay the same rate - has punished me, inconvenienced me, disgusted me.Â
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Giving me back what I want - weekly pick up - that I was happy, happy, happy paying for and receiving should not cost me one more penny in cost.Â
It was a bad idea last year, and it is still a bad idea this year.
Political offices are like computers. If you put garbage in, you will get garbage out.
Welcome to Portland. The smell is just one more reason to stay out of Portland.
Portland.... The city that REEKS!!!
Wait until the new bicycle-based garbage trucks go into service.
@al_02 Oh, way to go, you just gave then an idea they hadn't thought up....yet. Ha ha.
 @al_02 awesome
i hope you're kidding
How's Portland City Council doin for ya?? You elected this bunch of fools. When do you wake up?
Everyone in the city should collect compost and bring it to city hall. Let them smell the problem.Â
All of you PDXers who are complaining should choose carefully when you elect someone. Sammie and the other 4 clowns are giving you exactly what you asked for - a socially engineered life and a tax bill that has little resemblance to the concept of efficient and effective city government. I know that not everyone voted for these clowns but a large majority did. And, that same majority will continue to elect these myopic ultra-liberals who haven't got a clue.
 @I812 Who do you vote for when all the candidates are either out of touch with the blue collar workers (or people who have lost their jobs), or are just plain idiots to begin with and have no place in office to run the city?  They all make promises they don't keep and/or start running their pet projects with funds dedicated to other causes.  Wake up people, your being treated like a lemming with an iPhone!
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Makes me all the more happier I do not live in Portland OR. Yes diapers, they are one of things that has to dealt with in land fills, many companies are trying to make the diapers more safe for nature, but still, there is a lot of them. Not to mention Human waste, there is a reason why we have Sewer treatment plants. So imagine all the sewage backing up in land fills. Nice...
I almost forgot.......Sam's, November thru January "Leaf Removal Fee" (tree tax) season, is, once again upon you.How's that working for all you Portlanders, cursed with living in "leaf removal zones?" .......Happy Halloween !!!
 @angry1 I wish the leaf removal trucks WOULD come by my house. I'm 1-1/2 blocks out of their limits and my two huge trees are 100% my responsibility. There aren't even any leaf depots this year. So I'll be piling up the extras into a car-sized mound in my driveway and doling it out into the yard waste bin week after week. Last week, it took until late January to get rid of them all.
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Until we can elect some people who care about being fair, I will be praying for a lot of wind.
@Ann..That' one of the benefits of living in the East County,away from Portland's bizarre regulations,and close to the Gorge.The east winds strip the trees and yards of leaves and deliver them to Portland.
 @angry1 You are exactly correct! Although, I must say I feel sorry for my neighbor directly downwind, and find myself raking her yard each year.
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Otherwise, whatever dry leaves survive my mower are evenly and naturally distributed between throughout Portland and the west hills. It's organic.
 @angry1Â
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You gotta love that one.
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The city requires you to have "street trees". They even tell you what trees you can, and cannot have. Then when those trees produce leaves, they require you to pay for the cleanup.
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The irony is, you aren't required to have "street trees" if you don't have a sidewalk, which you would have to pay to have put in (and the person doing it is decided by the city) and then make sure it is clear and safe from that point on. You will also have to pay âapproved contractorsâ (i.e. city chooses those) to make any repairs and changes required to the sidewalk (like fixing it when the tree you are required to by pushes up on it causing it to be unsafe) Â for the rest of that homeâs existence.
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This is why the city has more unpaved roads than some third world rural towns. Because once you buy the privilege of living first world, you must continue to pay the city extra (in addition to taxes) the privilege to live next to the thing you paid for.
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@Repoman....It's amazing, isn't it? When some people in power play God, rules and regulations don't have to be fair,or make sense.Just do as they say.Â
Just the other day, I asked the driver/operator of the trash truck that comes by our place what he and other drivers think of this latest garbage schedule. THEY HATE IT, TOO!
My biggest complaint is having to look at the ridiculous collection of garbage cans littering the streets and sidewalks. Several of my neighbors just leave their garbage/compost/recycle cans on the sidewalk all the time. Is it such a big chore to put your cans away after they've been emptied?
@Sassy Its a city violation to leave cans at curb after 24 hrs of pick up. They could get finded..
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 @Sassy There's plenty of other cities to live in that don't have these big ugly cans on the street, you can always move.
 @djshimon  @Sassy That's the typical response of the hipster: move.
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The fact that most of them haven't been here more than a couple of years is irrelevant to them. History and collective culture mean nothing to a kid who believes that men have always walked on the moon - so naturally, they're happy to smugly share their vast knowledge and experience whenever an opportunity arises.
 @Maxredline  @djshimon  @Sassy How do you know his opinion of men walking on the moon, or how long somebody has lived here? Are you just sort of making it up as you go? Pretty good one. I was born in 1968 at Good Samaritan and raised east of Troutdale. In all fairness: Natives can sniff out most transplants fairly easy, and since we're giving up all our secrets, here are the rest:
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Never trust a Californian or anybody from Montana or Nevadaho. Arizona's okay, Hawaiians and whatever they call people from Utah get it, but be suspicious of Texans and Alaskans, you don't know anybody from New York or Wyoming. Washington...well...Washington. Nice people, but there's a lot of 'em. Just try not to drive there. If they're from Florida, they're trying to get to California so tell them to drive to Astoria and when then get there, to keep going west.
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If you should encounter a Canadian south of the Columbia River, ask them if they've heard of the Winterhawks. Don't worry, if they're real, they probably have. If they haven't, punch them out and report them to Homeland Security.
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I don't want to give up -ALL- the secrets, but, you know. Portland has always been a completely screwball place to live.
 @Maxredline  @djshimon Sheesh!  Get a room, both of you!
 @djshimon  @Sassy good for you - I did say "most" - but otherwise, the description fits.
 @Maxredline  @Sassy I was born here
Just move out of the city. This city is to far gone for saving, move and watch your troubles go away.Â
No fluoride before the 2014 vote portlandborne....
Don't worry everyone, we will become dumbed down by the fluoride water and will completely forget that this ever happened....
Plus, recycling simply turns your house into a temporary dump
But, we're the Great State of Portland and we know that's best for YOU and all our residents!!!! Â /sarcWill the City of Portland commission a new law enforcement department: the 'garbage police' Â - hey, this is Portland, it really could happen.
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But seriously, it is for stupidity like this that I chose not to live in Portland or Multnomah county.
 @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredEÂ
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I bought a house in Portland 15 years ago to live close to my work.
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That workplace is now gone, the place I worked after, gone, the place after that, moved, the place after that, downsized, now I have to work in Hillsboro because Portland does not like business.
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I would move out of my home, but there are more vacant houses on my block than occupied. There is no way I could sell my home, or even rent it out.
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I would like to live within 5 miles of my work again. Too bad no one wants to live in my house even if they did have a job close by.
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 @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE @djshimonÂ
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That depends are where you are. I have three empty rentals, two adjacent to my home, two across the street and two next to each other two houses down. There is also one two blocks down the street.
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Then there is back side neighbor whose house is empty, she has been trying to sell for three years. The older couple kitty-corner, who have been trying on and off for about 2 and the two new homes built on one torn down that have ceased construction this summer for lack of funds or demand.
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I live in Lents; I bet I could not give my home away. While people can charge $1200 a month for rent in a two bedroom apartment on Casey lane in Clackamas, my neighbors canât do the same with a two bedroom house next to me.
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Just because there is demand in a city, does not mean there is demand everywhere in that city. Part of the problem is, high crime rate, low occupancy rate, no schools, traffic issues, lack of infrastructure (many streets aren't paved) high utility costs ($300 a month for me between electricity, gas, water/sewer and garbage) and no nearby employment.
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The only thing I have going is mass transit and now that has nearly doubled in cost this year (From $60 a month for a bus pass to $100).
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So no, there is no demand for homes in my area.
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 @Repoman  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredEyou're right, Lents is not the destination for most people.
 @Repoman  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE I'm sure you could rent your house out in less than a month if you want, we have one of the lowest rates of vacancies in the country, "Among the 82 major metros in the Reis report, Portland's vacancy rate was second only to New York." -from oregon live, October 17, 2012 here's the link- http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2012/10/portland_apartment_rents_conti.html .
 @djshimon  @Repoman  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE I was thinking the same thing - rentals are going like crazy. It's a landlord's market, that's for sure.
 @Repoman  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE Welcome to the government run micro world that PDX has become...
Ah, crud, let me clean that up a bit (I HATE Backfyre, incidentally - I know, no one asked..)
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But, we're the Great State of Portland and we know that's best for YOU and all our residents!!!! Â /sarc
Will the City of Portland commission a new law enforcement department: the 'garbage police' Â - hey, this is Portland, it really could happen.
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But seriously, it is for stupidity like this that I chose not to live in Portland or Multnomah county
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 @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE thank you for not living here, we don't need you.
 @Maxredline  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE noted
 @Maxredline  @djshimon  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE You're all welcome to beat it if you can't get along.
 @djshimon There's nothing like Portland hospitality!
We welcome diversity - so long as you are like us and see the world EXACTLY the same way!
 @djshimon  @ThePosterFormerlyKnownAsPhredE Wrong, Shimon - we don't need <i>you</i>.