Menlo Park’s Waste Rates Increase in 2012

Disposing of waste will cost 8 percent more, starting Jan. 1, 2012 in Menlo Park.

City Council unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday that increases the base fee for disposing of solid waste by 8 percent.

“Unhappily,” Council Member Rich Cline said immediately after he voted yes.

The new rate for a single-family home that uses a 20-gallon cart will be $13.99 a month, up from 2011’s rate of $12.95, according to a staff report prepared for Council.

A home that uses a 32-gallon cart will be charged $23.40, up from $21.67, while a home that uses a 64-gallon cart will cost $55.99, according to that staff report.

Multi-family residential and commercial bins will cost much more, due to supplementary charges, which is an issue that displeases some property managers.

Tim Roberts runs an 18-unit condominium building on Sand Hill Circle. He said that he gets charged an extra fee for each time the waste retrieval technician pushes one of his seven 96-gallon bins to the waste truck.  

“It’s a 240 percent increase over what we were paying in December of last year,” Roberts said, of the additional cost for pushing the bins 101 feet from where they’re stored.

“The truck parks one time,” Roberts said.

Gino Gasparini, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Recology, said he doesn’t expect another rate increase to be implemented 2012, although it may happen again in 2013 and 2014.

For more information about the agreement between the city and Recology, read this city staff report.