Some students might be paying more for their trash collection than the city of East Lansing realizes.
Starting Oct. 1, a city ordinance will require owners of single-family and two-family houses to get rid of their trash in either city-wheeled carts, called Easy Carts, or in city-issued yellow trash bags, said Angela Mabin, administrator of the Department of Public Works.
This has been required for rental properties since 2002, she said.
The reason for this is to make trash collection easier and to improve the appearance of East Lansing, Mabin said.
“I think it makes the streets a little bit cleaner, because there are not bags of stuff laying all over the place where animals can get into (them),” Snyder said.
According to the ordinance, rental owners using the service must provide an Easy Cart to their tenants.
“Students shouldn’t be paying the fee,” Mabin said. “In rental properties, (they should) have their carts provided to them by the rental property owner.”
However, Community Resource Management Co., or CRMC, East Lansing’s second-largest real estate company, passes the cost of the trash receptacle to the tenants, said Joe Goodsir, president of CRMC.
“Whatever the city bills us, we bill them,” he said.
It costs $55 to purchase either a 32- or 64-gallon Easy Cart.
Residents also can choose a larger 96-gallon cart, which has a purchase price of $70 and an additional $50 collection fee each year, Mabin said.
Human biology junior Will Snyder, who is renting a house from CRMC, said it doesn’t bother him that the company is passing the costs onto students.
“I don’t care because I know I’m getting my trash taken care of,” he said. “But I know some of my roommates might be mad.”
The ordinance to modify trash collection was passed through the East Lansing City Council in January 2008.
Councilmember Roger Peters said he feels sympathetic toward students facing escalating costs, and that was not necessarily anticipated.
“Any business that incurs higher costs in any part of their operation, those costs tend to be passed on to the consumer, or in this case, the tenant,” he said.
However, Peters said he expects some property owners in the city to absorb the cost themselves.
On Oct. 1, the city will no longer collect trash from black plastic bags or metal trash cans at the curb, Mabin said.
“What we’re trying to do is encourage more residents to purchase carts,” she said.
The city is not making money off of the trash receptacles, Mabin said.
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“(The costs) we charge are the costs that we pay for the carts,” she said. “There’s no profit margin – we just round it up to the nearest $5 amount.”
