Oxford Village has a new trash hauler rolling through its neighborhoods and soon it will have a new collection day.
The Sterling Heights-based Rizzo Environmental Services is now collecting all the waste and recyclable materials from households and businesses alike.
Rizzo acquired the village’s contract when it purchased the Flint-based Richfield Equities LLC, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection back in September.
The village’s residential collection day will change from Thursdays to Fridays beginning Dec. 14.
‘They are proposing this change for the village and a few other customers (in order) to have the collection completed by dusk each day for safety reasons,? explained village Manager Joe Young. ‘They prefer not to collect garbage when it gets too dark.?
Young noted that Rizzo will be mailing a flyer to all residential customers notifying them of this change.
When a holiday falls on a weekday, the collection day will be delayed by a day. For the village’s residential customers that means a Saturday collection. Rizzo observes New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
Rizzo is honoring the terms of the existing three-year contract with the village, which doesn’t expire until September 2013. That means prices will remain the same.
‘They just changed the trucks and drivers, nothing else,? Young said. ‘They’re using their own trucks and their own drivers.?
Residential customers will continue paying $11.91 per month for waste/recycling collection. The monthly cost for commercial trash dumpsters will continue to be $110 each and the recycling dumpster cost will remain at $160 each per month.
There are 16 trash dumpsters and 2 cardboard recycling dumpsters within the central business district. Commercial pickup will continue to take place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Businesses will continue paying the commercial rate of $24 per unit.
The number of units assigned by the village to a commercial property depends on what type of business it is and the volume of waste it produces.
Village residents will continue to have access to the recycling rewards program that was previously offered through Richfield Equities and their existing account with it.
Now called Rizzo Rewards, it provides residents with coupons for local, regional and national businesses simply for placing recyclable materials at their curb for collection.
All customer user names and passwords have been converted and can now be used at www.rizzorewards.com.
Rizzo Rewards keeps track of who’s recycling and how often they’re doing it. It does this through a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag attached to each recycling bin.
Every time the bin is set out by the curb, special equipment aboard the recycling collection truck detects the tag and records that a pickup was made at that household.
Residents receive rewards based on their level of participation as recyclers. The program’s designed to increase the number of recyclers in a community.
In addition to Oxford Village, Rizzo also took over Richfield’s contracts in West Bloomfield, Highland and Milford townships, the villages of Lake Orion and Milford, and the cities of Keego Harbor and Sylvan Lake.
For more information about Rizzo Environmental Services, please visit www.rizzoservices.com or call (866) 772-8900.