New Trash and Recycling Program on Horizon for Alma, St. Louis Residents

By Rosemary Horvath
Herald Correspondent
[private]Alma and St Louis households will have a different solid waste and recycling program beginning May 1.
The Gratiot Solid Waste Authority recently approved a 5-year contract with Granger Waste Services, based in Lansing. This followed a process of advertising for bids, then reviewing options.
Granger replaces current contractor Republic Services out of Montcalm County that had submitted a bid along with one other provider.
Authority members are St. Louis City Manager Kurt Giles and Mayor Tom Reed, interim Alma City Manager Aeric Ripley and Commissioner Nick Piccolo.
Both municipal governing bodies recommended approval.
Granger also services the city of Ithaca.
Per the contract, households will be furnished with two easy-to-push 96-gallon carts: one for trashbags; the other for recyclable items.
The monthly charge will be bumped up to $13.03 on average per residence from around $12.
Giles explained ordering and distributing the 96-gallon containers to customers could take eight weeks, so the process of settling a contract was pushed along.
Alma City Clerk Sara Anderson said both cities pay the hauler monthly, then charge residents a monthly fee for solid waste collection that appears on monthly residential water bills.
Scott Truman of Granger informed the Alma City Commission at their Feb. 22 session his company will mail informational material to every household reviewing costs, pickup, container sizes, and recycling.
Granger’s recycling cart replaces the 18-gallon tote households currently use from Republic.
Refuge deposits will be picked up weekly. Recycled material schedule is every 2 weeks.
A customer may contact Granger customer service to arrange to have one bulk item picked up weekly.
The monthly charge of $13.03 on average per household is not based on number in a household.
Mayor Greg Mapes inquired about having lower costs for single person households with minimal trash. But to keep cost favorable to everyone, pricing is spread across the board, he was told.
Those households that produce higher amounts of trash have the option to pay for an extra 96-gallon container.
Truman emphasized Granger’s “robust” recycling program, thereby trash can be lowered.
Cardboard, magazines and newsprint, for example, are favored materials to recycle while glass has zero value, he said.
As an example, that outer Amazon cardboard box is recyclable material but the soft paper inner box is junk.
Granger contracts with the new Multiple Recycling Facility in Lansing.
Also, the 96 gallon container is today’s standard for modern single driver automated trucks.
Truman described a driver isn’t required to leave the cab while an automated arm lifts and empties containers of trash bags into a truck.
He said “hand picking” is a thing of the past to keep drivers free of aches and pains from picking up heavy bags, and throwing them in a truck.
Ripley highlighted results of a city survey inviting residents to state preferences. Of Alma’s 186 online responses, 87 percent used and favored retaining a recycling option, he said.[private]