Most cities have 99 problems, but garbage bags ain’t one of them.
Welcome to Starkville.
For years, the city has been providing its residents with garbage bags, which are paid for through the monthly sanitation fee it collects.
Each year, the city purchases 12,000 of these bags, which come in 100-bag rolls.
In a typical year, the cost of the bags is roughly $50,000, but due to inflation, this year’s bags cost the city a little more than $100,000.
The city-owned sanitation department has recently increased its sanitation fee by $1 per month to cover those costs.
The city this year also decided to quit delivering the bags to their customers.
Why?
Apparently in years past, people would follow behind the garbage bag delivery trucks and steal the bags from where they had been dropped off.
To help prevent the trash bag hoarders, residents this year have to pick up their bags at the city Sanitation Department.
“You’re talking about a taboo subject, man,” former alderman David Little told his fellow aldermen several years ago when they discussed discontinuing the bags and moving to 96-gallon tip-carts. “Talk about garbage bags and people go crazy.”
Discussion over.
From this we can conclude that garbage bags in Starkville are not unlike cocaine: It’s not a problem until you give people a little taste. Then, well, look out.
People want the garbage bags they pay for and they want them delivered.
It’s all a bit ridiculous, we think.
Garbage bag distribution is a headache the city of Starkville doesn’t need. It is an incredibly inefficient — borderline socialist — way to distribute a basic item that virtually every other U.S. citizen purchases for themselves.
So we will go out on a limb that Starkville politicians seem afraid of: The garbage bag distribution — and the surcharge that funds it — should go away.
It’s a trash idea.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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