Some residents frustrated over the city’s new garbage contract will have a chance to talk trash at the next Milpitas City Council meeting.
Milpitas Sanitation Inc. — which took over service last month from Republic Services — will present to council at its regular meeting Tuesday, which begins at 7 p.m. at city hall, 455 E. Calaveras Blvd.
René Belasco, 65, retired from the Stanford Research Institute, says his new trash bin — which is divided between a 67 gallon landfill and a 29 gallon food scrap containers — isn’t as generous as that under Republic.
“Who throws out that much food?” he asked, gesturing to the mostly empty partition of his bin. “We eat it!” He also questions the logic behind the recycling bins’ dividers, contending the various sorting required is unnecessarily complicated.
Crystal Ide, a retired housewife in her 60s, said she and her husband have allowed a family across the street toss some of their trash in her bin. “I can make it work, but I think with other families it’s hard on them,” she said.
When it comes to recycling, “I do the whole nine yards,” Ide said, “but the garbage bin in these is only so big.”
Vice Mayor Marsha Grilli says she hasn’t heard any complaints from residents in her neighborhood. She noted the transition to a new garbage collector involved a lengthy public input process.
“We had to seek a new contract that was actually more environmentally responsible,” she said. “It took almost two years to approve a contract with a lot of public input, a lot of feedback from our residents. It was a very contentious process because everybody had really strong opinions on the direction that we should take.”
Republic had been providing residents with unlimited garbage pickup for the last 30 years, Grilli said. Council ended up awarding a new garbage collector contract to Garden City Milpitas Sanitation — operating as Milpitas Sanitation — because it would save more money. It would also not deposit trash at the San Jose-based Newby Island Landfill, as Republic does, which has given Milpitas its reputation for stink.
Councilman Bob Nunez rejected the idea that the city hasn’t done enough to inform residents about the new system.
“I think we have to keep in mind it really is incumbent upon the company, Milpitas Sanitation, to do the education — it’s one of the things they were responsible for,” Nunez said. “If we need to help them to do more, then we need to do that.”
