Alisa Lein manages a two-story apartment complex — her former childhood home — on behalf of her parents, renting out the three units to a family and several young professionals.

To keep garbage costs low, her tenants were happy to share a single large trash cart and two recycling bins.

“That’s more than enough, most weeks,” said one tenant, law student Thomas Johnson, who rents one of the Grand Hill apartments. “It’s never been a problem.”

The city of St. Paul, however, plans to launch organized trash collection on Oct. 1, and under the city’s new mandates, each of the three apartments will have to have its own trash bin.

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In other words, costs associated with garbage collection could rise from roughly $240 annually to as much as $900 for the complex. Lein, who manages four properties that will be impacted by the changes, said her tenants will have to shoulder much of the pain through higher rents.

The policy could spell a hardship for some renters, especially in nearby low-income neighborhoods like Summit-University and Frogtown, Lein said.

“I do understand the desire behind the program, as far as reducing traffic on the alley, and wear and tear on the alley, and illegal dumping,” Lein said. “But I don’t understand why, if a single family can share a cart, why can’t apartment building tenants?”

“I don’t need three carts,” she added. “I’m pretty happy with one cart.”

SEEKING CLARITY

The Lein family, which owns properties in St. Paul’s Ward 1 and Ward 2, reached out to council member Dai Thao’s office on why sharing isn’t allowed.

While noting the city has tried to be more accommodating by offering a variety of bin sizes and pick-up-date options, the city must also “prevent unlawful or improperly disposing of trash,” said Yingya Vang, an executive assistant in Thao’s office, in an email response. They city must also keep data of trash generated in order to “monitor and divert 80 percent of solid waste in the waste stream, which is required by 2030.”

Preventing illegal dumping is important because the cost of clearing it up is often left with the property owner or taxpayers, Vang added. Thao recently raised the issue of multiple-unit buildings with the city council. While the five-year contract with the haulers has already been formalized, he “wants the (Public Works) department to pursue this further with the haulers as the program rolls out,” said Thao’s legislative aide, Mai Chong Xiong.

Maplewood and Bloomington allow property owners to opt out of their municipal trash collection program if they can prove they have a responsible way of disposing of their trash. Maplewood, however, requires one cart per unit for buildings with three units or fewer. Minneapolis does not allow opt-outs.

“The thing about multiple-unit buildings is that each unit may still generate the same amount of trash as a single-family home,” said Chris Swanson, solid waste coordinator for the city of Maplewood. “I think the multiple cart requirement has helped address the issue of multi-unit buildings not providing enough trash (service) for their tenants. One or two carts may work for a small number of buildings with recycling superstars, but most would need more trash carts.”

JUNE 1 DEADLINE

Lein and other small apartment building and condo owners are still sorting through all the details of St. Paul’s new system. Lein said the city sent a paper postcard for property owners to fill out with their service choices, but it raised more questions for owners of multi-family buildings than it provided answers. There’s no area on the postcards for them to mix and match services.

There also isn’t much time left to figure out the particulars.

St. Paul has asked property owners to fill out the postcards by June 1 with their service selection — weekly collection of small, medium or large carts, or small cart pick-up every other week — or to go online and enter details. If not, the city will issue carts for property owners based on their current cart size.

Lisa Hiebert, a spokeswoman for St. Paul Public Works, said Wednesday that it’s fine for a small apartment building to paste together different services, such as choosing two small every-other-week collections and one large weekly trash cart for all the units to share, which could shave quite a few dollars off monthly fees. The way to do that is online.

“Owners of multi-unit properties are encouraged to make their selection online at cartsize.net or call 888-287-7998. There are special fields/questions that allow them to enter the cart size/service selection information for each unit for the property.”

Hiebert pointed out there are approximately 73,500 residential dwellings in St. Paul that are a part of the new garbage program, which does not apply to commercial buildings or apartment buildings with more than four units. Of that, less than 8,000 are considered part of a multi-unit property, and they represent fewer than 300 property owners.

“We know there’s a lot of people who are sharing and responsibly disposing of the waste, but really there’s no way of tracking it,” Hiebert said. “Through this process, we now know that we have 9,300 properties that have unidentified service and are not with one of the city’s licensed haulers.” Related Articles Several hundred gather at Minnesota Capitol to protest Breonna Taylor developments

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In addition, the city’s contract allows residents to dispose of a Christmas tree and two or three “bulky” items per year, such as mattresses, sofas, refrigerators or television sets.

“We are getting questions if the monthly/quarterly pricing that we have listed on the brochure and postcard is inclusive of various fees that haulers have — environmental, fuel surcharge, etc.,” Hiebert said. “The answer is yes! The standardized service level pricing does include all fees, as well as county and state taxes.”