OK, Christmas Day came on Monday and I don’t expect my trash to be picked up on Christmas Day. (Monday is trash day around here.)
So it gets picked up on Tuesday — and so does all the trash from those folks whose regular trash day is Tuesday. That means, that the city trash service has the capability to do at least twice as much work in a day than they regularly do.
Does this make any sense at all. If they can pick up twice as much trash in a day, then why not have the trash trucks (and the trash cans) our there only three days a week and not five. Three days would give them a half day more than they need, and we wouldn’t have garbage cans out every day (in different areas) and have to dodge the trash trucks.
This same issue is marginally true of mail carriers although we do want mail delivered every day, don’t we? First of all, why do we need mail delivered on Saturday? Businesses, OK — if they want mail, they can send someone to the post office to pick it up. But do I need the mailman to come to my house on Saturday. Think how much could be saved by not delivering mail on the weekend. We are talking about billions of dollars. Then maybe they could keep the cost of mailing a first class letter down.
This will never happen, however. I hear that the USPS has over 750,000 employees, all unionized. They aren’t going to stand for stopping Saturday delivery.
The solution, the same as all others. Let the free market work. My guess is that if a private company picked up my trash rather than the city of LA, they would do the entire city in half the time, at half the cost and still make a good profit. Ditto the mail.
JVH
One Response
Actually, a private company with a monopoly on trash pick-up would probably do an even worse job. What you really want is a few different entities competing to pick up trash.