Letter to the Editor 

To the editor:

We learned in the Dec. 27 issue of the Call that the city of Crestwood will be switching to a new trash provider effective April 1, 2019, due to numerous problems with the current provider.

For the sake of Crestwood residents, I sure hope they get better service from the new provider, because they will be paying a premium price compared with those of us in unincorporated St. Louis County.

According to the article, Crestwood obtained bids from five companies and selected Waste Connections, which will charge a monthly household fee of $19 for the first year of service.

It’s not clear from the article if residents will also pay a cart rental fee, but the monthly household fee alone is much higher than the fees obtained by St. Louis County for any of the eight trash districts for which it contracts on behalf of residents in the unincorporated areas, and the county trash district rates include both trash and recycling carts.

So if Crestwood residents must pay cart rental fees, the price disparity will be even worse.

The trash district pricing tables posted on the St. Louis County website show monthly rates ranging from $10.63/month (for District 2) to $14.47/month (for District 8) for trash/recycling pickup service between April 1, 2019 through March 31, 2020. Moreover, the rates for the final year of the five-year contract period for the eight trash districts, covering April 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022, range from $11.06/month (for District 2) to $15.06/month (for District 8), still well below the rates to be charged to Crestwood next year.

The county trash district rates cover once-per-week service, and my assumption is that this is also the case for the Crestwood rates.

Gerald Kulage
Oakville
Trash District 7