Johns Creek will consider a sweeping new solid-waste ordinance that would levy an environmental fee on haulers, and require residents and businesses to contract for weekly garbage and recycling collection.
Officials have been trying for months to craft a policy that would give the city its first opportunity to monitor its waste stream by licensing all haulers and requiring them to record tonnage.
The ordinance was initiated to comply with a state requirement that governments work to reduce solid waste by promoting recycling.
The proposal would charge haulers an environmental monthly fee of $1 per residence, 50 cents for multifamily and 5 percent of total revenues collected from commercial customers. To recover the money, haulers could only charge their customers 50 percent of the fee, or they could absorb the entire cost.
Money collected would fund an environmental management improvement program for litter reduction and education programs. It would also pay for a supervisor's position to coordinate solid waste.
The city expects to generate $426,000 a year from the fee.
An earlier proposal had specified that more than half the fund would be used for road maintenance to compensate for the damage trucks cause to streets. It also listed expenditures for beautification projects. But, city officials have backed away from those expenditures.
The latest proposal does not have an itemized list of fund expenditures. Instead, it provides that the director of public works and city manager will submit an annual list of proposed expenditures for city council approval.
As proposed, the ordinance would force all haulers to have a contract with the city and display a decal on their equipment to prove it. Currently, the city has no law regulating who operates garbage service in Johns Creek.
It also would allow, in the future, for the city to establish exclusive service zones to limit the number of haulers allowed in a neighborhood.
"We want to do this correctly," said James Swope, solid waste manager. "We want to make certain that the actions we take are in concert with what the community wants us to do."
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