Gwinnett County Paying For a Monopolized Utility Through Property Taxes!

About ten days ago, a good friend of mine forwarded me an email informing me Gwinnett County will be going to a mandatory solid waste collection system in January 2009. Evidently, in April 2008, the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners adopted, and approved a new plan that designated Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful (GCB Services, Inc.) to implement, manage and enforce a new enhanced waste and recycling program. This is supposed to increase recycling, reduce pollution and lead to a “clean and beautiful” Gwinnett County. While this should be a good thing, I always have a bit of skepticism and wonder what it will cost.


Currently in Gwinnett County it appears that everybody and their brother collects trash. Right now, in my neighborhood noisy and smelly trash trucks are running about everyday, and on some days, we have multiple companies and trucks coming through. To be honest, I see more trash trucks than school busses. This should indicate something is really wrong. But one could look at this and say, it is “capitalism at its best”. Several companies competing for your hard earned dollars. This competition should imply better service at a lower cost. Believe me, I am one of the largest supporters of capitalism and the free market society; and I love to see it at work. But, in the case of trash pickup where I live, this did not happen; even with so many choices. Without going into many details, it appears that mutual price fixing was the name of the game here. Over the last several years, service and quality have drastically reduced, while prices skyrocketed. The prices were about the same no matter who you called. You would think I would be happy about a change, but guess what?

Starting in January 2009, only 2 companies will be permitted to pickup trash in unincorporated Gwinnett County. Advance Disposal Service Atlanta LLC will cover the northern part of the county, and Waste Pro of Georgia will cover the southern part. Since the service demand for each of these suppliers will increase, the operational costs per pickup should be greatly reduced. As a result, this should be reflected in a better value. One major problem with this is it eliminates competition for the consumer business, even between these two companies. You are assigned your provider with no choice. This tells me that we are being forced to move from free market participation, to a government contracted monopoly. We all know what abuses can arise with monopolies, so I won’t cover that here. If being forced to be serviced by a monopoly isn’t bad enough, just wait it gets even worse. There will be a phase-in period. From January through June, customers will pay a $20.45 monthly fee directly to their new agency. Good enough, I can understand a company wanted to be paid for services rendered. After June a $17.86 monthly service fee will be added to their property tax bill. What? This can only spell trouble.

The only possible benefit this tax item could have would be it might slow those who illegally dump their trash, or use their neighbors’ trash cans, by enforcing trash collection on each county residence. The probability of this is slim at best. What it does do, is collect money for services NOT rendered. Let’s look at it. If I decide to move and still have this house up for sale, I will be charged for picking up trash that I’m not generating. I will be able to stop other utilities like water, power, gas, phone, cable and Internet. The house will be empty and I will not need them. I also will not be generating trash at that residence, so why should I have to pay for that service? What if I own the empty lot next to mine? Like many have done, it may have been purchased because I wanted to give my family more yard space. I will now have to pay twice for the use of one service. The list can be endless.
There are many more ways this form of payment for a utility is bad, let alone being forced into a monopoly. Please let me know some of your thoughts in a comment. I’m looking forward to here what you have to say.