By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — Slow and sure is the approach of Plymouth’s Common Council concerning privatizing trash pick-up in the city.
The administration came before the Council with a recommendation to accept Allied Waste’s bid of $15.08 a month for the service for five years. The contract would include a 96-gallon tote for all city residents and curbside pick up.

Most discussion on the night centered around the size of the tote for residents. While past conversations have centered on the tote being too small, Monday night the discussion was abut it being too large.
“I don’t have room in my garage for a 96-gallon tote and I’d never be able to fill one up in four weeks,” said Councilman Chuck Ripley. “There’s a lot of senior citizens and older people that don’t need that size of tote. I think we’re going to get a lot of recoil from this.”
One patron in the audience stated that older family members would never be able to manage getting the tote to the curbside because of its size.
Allied Waste has said that a smaller 64-gallon tote would be made available to customers after a 60-day trial period, and that an even smaller 32-gallon tote could be kept in stock for residents wishing the smaller size. Studies have shown however that most customers, once they’ve had the larger 96-gallon size, rarely go to a smaller tote.
The Senter administration has suggested a cost of $16 per month for residents with the extra money going to any unforeseen administrative costs of the changed service. The goal of the charge was to make trash and recycling a fee based service and get it off of any extra support from property taxes.
The Council must decide which neighborhoods in the city cannot be changed to curbside pickup and while recycling and refuse will continue to be picked up on the same day, the day that occurs could possibly change for many residents.
Allied anticipates that it will be able to do the entire trash run for the city in three days, rather than the five that it now takes.
Under the plan, yard waste would continue to be collected by the Plymouth Street Department as it is currently and “Spring Clean Up” will continue to be run by the city.
At the end of discussion Councilman Don Gardner made a motion to table the recommendation.
“I just want a little more time to think about it,” he said. “I want to make sure we’ve examined any possible questions that could come up.”