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Columbia County Board of Supervisors increases garbage charge
Jeanette Wolfberg reports for The Columbia Paper that the Columbia County Board of Supervisors has authorized the Solid Waste Department to increase the minimum charge for disposing of garbage at its transfer stations from $1 to $3 a bag, thereby eliminating the $1 tag from use. The increase was approved by the full board at its meeting on October 12. However, the price hike will not take effect until county officials work on accommodating those residents who regularly use the $1 bags. The “pay-as-you-throw” charge does not include the cost of the bags themselves, which are available from local stores. The tags are purchased from the county and are placed on each bag before the bag or bags are disposed of. The $1 tag is for bags that hold 10 gallons or less; $3 bag holds 13 to 30 gallons; and $5 bags contain 33 to 55 gallons of garbage. The county’s October 12 decision will eliminate the $1 tag. Since September 2021, anyone disposing of trash at transfer stations must buy both bags and tags, instead of bags alone, as was the practice for years. Other counties and places have also made this change, county officials said. At the October 12 Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Ron Knott of Stuyvesant said, “Solid waste gets funded with a lot of tax dollars and people complain.” He added that at budget meetings over the years, people spoke of the need to increase solid waste fees, “and we kept putting it off, because we didn’t want to impact our residents….We need to increase the fees or offset them with taxes.” But Canaan Supervisor Brenda Adams said the change “will have little or no impact. It’s symbolic.” Copake Supervisor Jeanne Mettler said the problem is that some people are “throwing in big garbage bags with a $1-tag or no tag,” while the measure penalizes people who generate only a small-bag amount of waste each week. Read the full story in The Columbia Paper.