San Carlos to Pay Higher Garbage Rates Next Year.

December 14, 2011

5.3% Increase in 2012

In a widely anticipated move, the San Carlos City Council on Monday voted 4-1 to approve a 5.3% rate increase for garbage and recycling service from Recology.   The increase should come as no surprise to residents of San Carlos, since the likelihood of a price increase has been discussed periodically in previous council meetings.

According to Kristen Marschall's article in the Daily News, San Carlos residents are actually quite diligent at recycling and diverting waste from the landfill.  This year alone, nearly 69% of all curbside waste in San Carlos was recycled instead of going into landfill, according to the article.    Because of this proficiency, many residents were able to downsize their black garbage bins to smaller sizes (and cheaper rates), thus creating a shortfall in expected collection revenue at Recology.

Looking ahead, there will likely be another rate increase of about 3.5% in 2013, according to the article.

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1 Comments

  1. Anonymous on December 14, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    Not Good.
    What is this based on? They haven’t raised it enough already? Once again, we suffer as customers because we are doing the responsible thing and recycling. This same thing happened when we collectively use less water…the rates increase.

    I know conservation should be for the sake of conservation alone. But to see a slight savings is also an understood by-product of conservation.

    I realize gas is a completely different animal, but consumption is down, yet we continue to pay higher gas prices (the highest in the country).

    I’d like to know what would have happened if the city council had voted this increase down. How many San Carlos residents agree with this and aren’t we supposed to be represented by the city council? It’s clear on this blog that Recology’s service is not worth more to us.



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