Coon Rapids City Council Opts To Maintain Current Trash Pickup System, Considers Ordinance Changes

Residents of Coon Rapids can breathe a bit easier knowing their trash pickup won’t be overhauled just yet.

The City Council, after a recent work session, has chosen to stand pat on organized waste collection, leaving the current open hauling system intact, allowing locals to pick and choose their trash handler from an approved list.

While the status quo remains, the City isn't turning a blind eye to the inefficiencies and nuisances of the present arrangement, seeking improvements through a series of potential ordinance changes and policy tweaks, the staff was tasked to develop new procedures to refine the system, during the session held on Feb. 26 and the city announced on Feb. 28 the process of evaluating their waste collection has been wrapped up with no plans to negotiate formally with haulers.

The announcement laid out a smorgasbord of possible remedies: from amendments to the city's ordinances to capping the tally of licensed haulers permitted to operate, a move geared towards cutting down on both solicitation and the endless parade of garbage trucks that rattle the streets.

Other considerations include a robust complaint-tracking system and stricter solicitation requisites for haulers, not to mention a pivot towards educating the public on how they could band together with neighbors to streamline their waste collection.

Though often loathed, the bureaucracy of waste collection is of no small consequence, junk removal stands as a silent testament to our consumerist society, residents now have been promised that new proposals aimed at enhancing the system will go before the Council for debate and potentially adoption later on this year, as Coon Rapids looks to clean up its act, or at the very least, the act of cleaning up.

SOURCE: hoodline