Welcome to

Fayetteville Trash
.com

A website detailing the UNFAIRNESS of the Fayetteville, Arkansas solid waste system

1.  Under the Fayetteville scheme, I pay for trash service whether I use it or not.  If my family and I are out of town for a week, we don't use the trash service.  However, we are still charged for it.

2.  The Fayetteville solid waste department allows you to exceed your trash canister's top by six inches.  Does the driver measure each canister lid?  If not, the citizen consumer is left up to the whim of the driver.  For those he likes, he estimates the lids to be open less than six inches; for others, he charges a $6.00 surcharge without any notice to the taxpayer.  This constitutes the arbitrary and capricious nature of the system.

3.  Under this scheme, if I place my canister by the street and go to work, any one passing by can add trash to my canister, thereby causing my canister to be overload by more than six inches.  Do I have to guard my trashcan until the trash truck comes by?  Holding me liable for what other people place in my trash canister amounts to strict liability.  If my trashcan is overloaded, the City CANNOT prove I did it or someone else!  However, I have to pay the additional fee.

 4.  Not only is the Fayetteville trash collection system unfair, it is also VERY EXPENSIVE.  Fayetteville charges more than FOUR TIMES AS MUCH for residential trash service than Rogers, Siloam Springs, and Springdale.  It also charges more than three times as much as Bentonville.

Our research was based on a trash collection quantity of 128 gallons per week or, in other words, 512 gallons per month.

We found that, in the United States, the average amount of trash produced by one person is 1609 pounds per year.  This figure is household trash, office trash, restaurant trash, etc.  We used only 26.68 percent of this as the annual amount of household trash.  We also found that it takes, on average, 5.57 gallons of trash to equal one pound of trash.

An additional fact we used was, the average American household is comprised of 2.57 persons.

The area cities we looked at and the price they charge for 512 gallons of trash removal per month are as follows:

Rogers:
512 gallons monthly = $9.70 (23%) (over 4X's)

Springdale:
512 gallons monthly = $9.57 (23%) (over 4X's)

Bentonville:
512 gallons monthly = $9.25 (22%) (over 4.5X's)

Fayetteville:
512 gallons monthly = $41.74*

*price determined by the following:
96 gallon can (the largest Fayetteville offers) times 4 pick-ups per month = 384 gallons
96 gallon can costs $17.74 per month

512 - 384 = 128       extra bag = $6        average bag size = 30 gallons

128/30 = 4.26           4 x $6 = 24        $24 + $17.74 = $41.74

This equation is not complicated by accident,. The City of Fayetteville structures its rate scheme so that comparing Fayetteville trash rates to other Cities' rates in the area is difficult to do.  Indeed, the Fayetteville rate structure is relatively inexpensive for small households such as a homosexual couple living together, but the plan is over four times as expensive as other cities in our area, when it comes to charging a traditional family including three or four children. 

Isn't it interesting.  Our federal government tries to help traditional families by providing federal tax breaks for families with children (child credits, Earned Income Tax Credits, Personal Exemptions, Head of Household filing status for single parents with CHILDREN, etc.).  However, the City of Fayetteville actually penalizes families with children.  Although the penalty is hidden from sight, it is very real and over four times as expensive as other cities in our area.