Cart purchasingWhy can’t customers purchase their own carts??
The only way to get the correct colors and sizes of carts would be to purchase them through SSC. Any
thoughts of purchasing random types and sizes will fail since we will not know which is a recycling cart
and which is a garbage cart.
Assuming they are purchased through SSC there are three reasons why we don’t want to do this:
1. The cost recovery time is too long.
The cost of each cart is $0.50 per month and the cost is about $55 (including taxes and delivery). This
means that the payback period is at least 110 months, or 9 years and two months. It is very likely that
the cart will break in this time period and the customer would be required in all cases to pay the
replacement cost. When the cart breaks we will be at odds with the customer since we are likely going
to be the ones breaking the cart and we will not take responsibility for replacement. Many who want to
purchase their cart believe that they are going to save the current rental fee of $2.88/mo. but they will
only save $0.50/mo.
2. A second rate structure would be required.
There would need to be a rate structure for those with carts and those without. This would add a lot to
the MUBS workload. Of the two carts that are at each home – one might be rented or two might be
rented.
3. Tracking those that owned and those that rented would be onerous.
SSC would need to know and track all of the serial numbers for all of the carts as to which are owned
and which are rented. This can be done but it will require more staff at SSC and that cost would need to
be added to the residential rate structure.