Hate looking at a collection of trash cans on the curb multiple times a week? Sick of refuse trucks rumbling down quiet neighborhood streets day after day?

In the New Year, garbage pickup may be getting an overhaul in Chaska.

During a work session Monday night, the Chaska City Council discussed its options for streamlining garbage service throughout the city. The council previously voiced a desire to seek ways to improve aesthetics and safety, while reducing wear and tear on streets by standardizing the service.

“We want to get some consistency,” said Mayor Pro Tem Chris Schulz. “Eliminate the traffic.”

“It’s about aesthetics and safety,” said Councilor Greg Boe.

Assistant City Administrator Bart Fischer presented the council with his findings, including a selection of comments from other metro cities on how they regulate their garbage service. Fischer’s ultimate recommendation was that the city move to implement a zoned system in which garbage service is open to multiple haulers, but limited to one day per week in a neighborhood.

Currently, Chaska licenses its haulers, but has no limit to the number that can service the city. As a result, residents have the freedom of choice when it comes to which company picks up their garbage. Although, the system also results in some neighborhoods seeing garbage trucks almost on a daily basis.

One of the council’s options would be to develop a city-run garbage collection system, similar to the city’s Internet or electric utilities. However, that option failed to garner much support, as did an option to go to a single hauler system, in which the city would solicit bids for garbage service and then contract with one company for all residents. Other cities that went to a single hauler system reported major opposition from garbage collection services who were quick to mobilize residents to voice their concerns, Fischer said.

“The biggest issue is choice,” said Boe, who witnessed the difficult move to a single hauler system in Shakopee. “It takes away your right to vote with your wallet.”

Fischer noted that the city’s 1995 Quality of Life survey asked residents about their preference for garbage collection, specifically whether or not they would be interested in moving to a single hauler system. “An overwhelming 70 percent stated they wanted to stay with the present system,” Fischer wrote in a memo.

“There was a clear indication from our residents in this survey that choice of carriers as a consumer was an important option for them.”

A zoned system would allow residents to continue to choose their own hauler, but would require haulers to conform to picking up garbage on the day indicated by the city. Those days could vary throughout the city, but would be the same within a neighborhood.

However, the system would not preclude an individual neighborhood from organizing to go with a single hauler. Nicholas Mason arranged such an agreement with his neighbors in the White Oak Drive area and applauded the council’s discussion to move to a zoned system. “It’s a good first step,” he said.

Mason’s neighborhood was able to negotiate a good price by going with a single hauler, saving residents from up to 48 percent off their bills, he said, but it also allowed them to improve their neighborhood’s cleanliness and safety.

“The safety factor is important,” he said. “Especially if you’re in a neighborhood with young children.”

The move to a zoned system would require the city to change the garbage hauling ordinance, City Administrator Matt Podhradsky noted. No date was set to put such an ordinance change on a council agenda, but Podhradsky said they could look to implement a zoned system in early 2010. Podhradsky said they would also put the question of garbage service back on the next community survey.

-Mollee Francisco, staff writer