By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — The Plymouth Common Council has set a limit to trash for the city.
The Council voted on the third reading of a resolution setting the limit on the amount of trash a single residence can discard in a week. The amount is defined in the ordinance as the amount of trash that will fit in a 96-gallon trash tote or in three 33-gallon trash bags. Recycling per week is unlimited.

Discussion had arisen in a previous council meeting regarding the manner in which the trash could be thrown away. While Street Superintendent Jim Mar-quardt stated that his department was not equip-ped to handle 96-gallon bins in their entirety, he did say that residents should continue to place their refuse in their current cans. Residents are encouraged to use bags within those bins.
Workers currently reach into bins that are too large and remove bags of trash from them to make them more manageable to lift. He stated that while the city would continue to pick up bags of trash, it was preferable to keep them in bins to keep them from becoming ripped and scattering trash around a neighborhood.
He did also say that with the issue of whether or not the city would continue to collect trash is still debated, he didn’t believe  that residents should feel the need to go out and purchase a new bin to contain their bags.
Councilman Mark Neidig provided numbers to the Council regarding the amount of refuse thrown away by the average household in the city. Mike Good at the Marshall County Solid Waste District had provided numbers for Neidig to use in his analysis.
Neidig stated that the average household would rarely exceed the 96-gallon limit considered by the Council.
He also stated that while the city does pay more for recycling than trash taken to the landfill, he pointed out that those numbers did not include man hours, fuel and vehicle usage.
The Council also opened bids from private contractors for the city’s trash service. Borden Waste Away and Allied Waste placed bids with the council for the service.
Borden put in a bid of $18.16 per month per residential household with the company providing 96-gallon totes for refuse. The bid from Borden was $19.12 for trash pickup to remain the way it is currently — residents providing totes and placing their cans in alleyways.
Allied put in a bid of $15.08 a month per residence with the company providing totes. The bid was $13.66 a month for service to remain as it is currently.
The bids were taken under advisement by the council