Even if this is the high end (which it apparently is the VERY high end), it would cost the ‘average’ rate payer about $2.00 more per month on their monthly trash bill. That is nothing in the grand scheme of things. More likely it would be about $1.00 a month (again at the high end) to keep hard working individuals—many of whom were unemployed before ACRC built the Samoa Facility—on the job sorting our ever increasing waste divergences (AKA recycling) and to continue to support the recycling education program which touches 5,000+ local kids each year. The same people in our community who would be upset about this rate change are the ones who drive across town to save $0.04 a gallon on gasoline or spend money each day for someone else to make their coffee and put it in a disposable paper cup. We do not have the proper perspective of what money is worth, how to save it, or most importantly spend it wisely.

You get what you pay for in life and if we, as a community, want to save ~$12.00 a year on our trash pick-up we are suffering from a crisis of perception. HWMA is suffering from a crisis of megalomania. It appears that they have made a spiteful decision against ACRC. Having talked to one of their head employees yesterday over lunch the perspective I got was that HWMA wants ACRC has to pay for poor business decision—how dare they cost our community members $1.00 per month to sort the excessive waste we produce by drinking bottled water every day!

In actuality, ACRC has been at it for 40 years, building up our community’s waste reduction to a point that they made the leap of faith to build the Samoa sorting facility because we had become prolific recyclers. Through education and community involvement Humboldt County is setting the bar for diverting waste from the landfill, in large part because of the education efforts ACRC is funding. With the subprime mortgage fiasco recyclables took a hit and all ACRC asked was the community support them through the touch times—times where the price of the recycling commodities took a hit (China quit paying for our cardboard and taking plastics for free for example). This was the perfect storm for HWMA to make the ‘go for the kill’ decision to get ACRC out of the picture rather than trying to work with them for the greater good of our community.

Milt Boyd is right; we need jobs for our community and clearly better education for our elected officials who made this decision. HWMA is blind to the current and future needs of our community.