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Houston City Council is considering a proposal by Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration to introduce a $1.14 monthly lease charge for residential garbage and recycling bins, a fee the city says is needed to keep enough containers in stock.
The Houston Chronicle reports the council will consider the proposal April 29, and at least one member has already come out against the fee, which would start appearing on monthly water bills in July if approved.
The proposed fee would bring in about $421,200 per month, or about $5 million per year, for the Solid Waste Management Department.
The proposal to charge a lease for bins comes as Houston leaders prepare to confront a ballooning budget gap in the fiscal year that begins July 1 caused by the coronavirus pandemic and tanking oil prices. Turner has estimated the deficit will be between $170 million and $200 million.
Council member Amy Peck said the worsening economic picture “is not the right time to add fees.”
“I realize $1.14 per month is not a lot of money for most homeowners, but it is the principle and it is a slippery slope,” Peck says in a news release. “Unemployment is skyrocketing. People are struggling right now with money, health and uncertainty.”
The Solid Waste Management Department says funding for maintaining and replacing bins has not been able to keep up since the city implemented single-source recycling between 2010 and 2015, effectively doubling the number of bins it has throughout the city.
The department serves about 390,000 customers with a total of about 780,000 containers. It says it has devoted about $1 million per year to replacing the containers since 2006.
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