Macomb Township Invites Residents to Talk Trash

Macomb Township residents are invited to attend a special meeting tonight to discuss the township's planned contract extension with waste hauler Waste Management.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at . The board of trustees will be present to answer residents' questions regarding the contract extension and services provided by Waste Management.

Waste Management is the township's current waste collection service. When the township bid out the service five years ago, Waste Management won the bid for an eight-year contract, which had five years plus a three-year extension to allow for modifications in the rate.

The extension will lock in a per-address, per-month rate and includes a special, reduced rate for seniors (residents 60 and over).

The new per-address, per-month rates compared to the rates for the previous five years are as follows:

*Seniors who pay annually will receive one month off their total bill.

This means that annually, residents can expect to pay approximately $178.80 a year, which includes the new rate and the $2.04 annual household hazardous waste (HHW) program fee.

The annual senior citizen rate will also be fixed at $146.04 if paid quarterly, or $134.04 if paid annually.

For customers who pay for these services annually, the fuel surcharge portion of the contract will not apply. However, for those who pay month-to-month or quarterly, they can expect a few cents added to their monthly payments every time the price per gallon of diesel fuel at the pump exceeds $4.30.

The fuel surcharge for the previous five years was $2.66.

Waste Management takes its price-per-gallon rates from those reported monthly by the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy ("EIA/DOE") in its Monthly Retail On-Highway Diesel Prices Index.