The North Bay Bay

From: George Waye, community contributor

NORTH BAY — North Bay City Council on Monday unanimously approved replacing their proposal to charge homeowners for extra garbage to just sending North Bay residents several empty Amazon boxes.

The rationale is that taxpayers can now put their surplus trash in an Amazon box, put it on their porch, and just wait for thieves to remove it from their property.

Many North Bay taxpayers were disappointed to learn that starting in January, the city would only be collecting two bags or containers of garbage- with the cost of any additional garbage put out at the curb charged to the homeowner.

This new proposal would eliminate the “tag” system and replace it with a supply of Amazon boxes that are expected to be removed much quicker than traditional garbage collection.

“Our one worry is that taxpayers may get spoiled by the prompt removal and then expect that same level of service from our regular garbage collection service”, says Councillor Vic Tikus, the politician who spearheaded the new program. “We do expect that taxpayers will be happy saving a few bucks every week.”

The new program is also expected to take some stress off of recycling programs, where Amazon boxes make up a large chunk of cardboard recycling material.

“We get that some of the boxes will still enter our recycling program,” said Tikus, “but surely some of these porch pirates are from Redbridge or Corbeil. So some of this waste won’t be our problem.”

“Taxpayers asked us to stop charging them more and more money for services we previously offered for free, and we answered. This new program downloads the cost of garbage disposal onto people who everyone agrees are pretty much garbage.”

The pilot program begins starting March 1st, and customers will be able to request the number of boxes and sizes they require starting February 25th.