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Summit Daily letters: With flow control comes rising costs for trash hauling

The cost of flow control

The flow control ordinance goes back to the Breckenridge Town Council on Tuesday. What most homeowners aren’t realizing is that should this ordinance pass in town (or the county) their trash and recycling costs are going to have a dramatic increase. Timberline was the first competition to Waste Management and brought their costs down significantly between 2005 and 2009. Those trash costs remain lower today than what they were back then, and recycling services have increased. If this passes, Timberline will leave the area and Waste Management will be the sole commercial provider in the county. Also, there’s no guarantee from the commissioners office that the tipping fees at the landfill will remain at the reduced cost of $58 per ton (still the second highest in the state) and the extended hours will stay.

Let’s also keep in mind that processing recycling isn’t free. I pay $10 per month for recycling. I don’t understand why it’s expected to be a free service to everyone else.



Let’s push the county to get an outside audit and make sure that this is the only choice before limiting a private company’s opportunity to function and removing competition in our free market society.

Abbey Browne



Breckenridge

Kudos to Silverthorne for free market stance

Hats off to Silverthorne for supporting free market competition for trash haulers. The county commissioners proposed solution to keeping recycling funded by requiring all waste collected in Summit to be dumped in Summit takes choice away from haulers.

As a longtime resident and avid recycler, I highly value the drop-off centers. I am willing to support the cost of recycling with a container fee assessed on every container of trash picked up in Summit. My guess is something along the lines of .25-.50 cents per pick up, passed through to the customer would generate the needed revenue.

This levels the playing field for haulers and puts the cost of running the program on those who benefit from it. Even those who choose not to recycle, will benefit from the extended lifespan of our landfill from the diverted waste.

Many public services are funded through taxes or fees. Why should a service that has such strong public support be any different?

Tom Castrigno

Frisco

Colorado ski law lacks teeth

This letter is in response to Jim Riley’s letter of Jan. 10 and is intended as further comment on the sad situation regarding Colorado ski law. In general, I was somewhat shocked at the attitude and response that the Breckenridge Ski Patrol displayed when responding to the incident that Mr. Riley described. Perhaps the patrol can clarify?

While I am fairly well aware of the fact that we have little defense against reckless skiers, I am also aware that few visitors from other states, such as Mr. Riley, would know that they cannot stop anyone who wants to leave the scene of a ski accident. The fact that the patrol asked the obviously reckless boarder if he wanted to press charges is making me wonder if my now 70-year-old body wants to continue to ski at a Vail Resorts area.

Having been the victim of quite a few close encounters with obviously reckless or out of control folks on both skis and boards; two of which resulted in a collision, I wonder how many more years we will be able to survive this sport in this particular state.

David Yost

Silverthorne


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