The Lansing State Journal is reporting that the City of Lansing is planning on discontinuing availability of specially designed and priced trash bags for city residents. Those that use the Capital Area Recycling and Trash service for refuse disposal won't simply just be able to buy regularly priced trash bags for pick up by the city. Residents will be required to to lease curbside wheel carts to continue service. Regular trash bags may be placed into those receptacles.

As it stands, residents can lease variously sized carts from the city, purchase 5-pack bags of the blue city trash bags for $11.25, or, use a private service for trash removal. In comparison, C.A.R.T. charges $48 every three months ($196 per year) for a 32-gallon cart. Those fit three regular sized trash bags or two larger sized trash bags for pickup each week. Larger cart sizes are also available for slightly higher fees.

Each city bag will fit approximately 15 gallons of refuse, but, all bags must weigh less than 30 pounds each. That means some bags may allow for a bit less than 15 gallons, some a bit more. Let's use 15 gallons as the fair average capacity. This means each time you purchase C.A.R.T. bags, you're getting 75 gallons for $11.25, a cost of 15 cents per gallon.

With a 32-gallon blue cart from C.A.R.T., you're allotted those 32 gallons in the container and two bags outside of it each week. Without even factoring the extra two bags each week, residents will get 384 gallons of space over the three month period for $48, a cost of twelve and a half cents per gallon, plus, any two-bag overages free each week.

If you're tossing out 2-3 bags of trash per week, you'll actually save money. If you're tossing out less than 2-3 bags per week, you might have a small, quiet gripe...and, a messy property/hoarding issue!! If that's you, or you're one of those who just likes to "stick it to da man...", you can always price out private landfill services and collectors. Get back to me about your savings there...

C.A.R.T. will stop collecting city trash bags at the end of December 2019. For full details, visit this link to LSJ.com.

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