I do not know if this ruling applies to wards, but I would expect it would. And, while Ann Arbor may be a mostly Democratic town, our interests vary. It would seem to me that the student neighborhoods are easy to use as pawns to move around depending on which ward needs a few thousand more folks – particularly census tracts that are comprised of dormitories.

Since the per ton payment to RAA is variable, it’s impossible to tell from the revenue information given in today’s article how the total tonnage of potential recyclables collected after the program was implemented compares to the tonnage collected before the program. And more importantly, how much of this tonnage collected was actually recycled–that is, purchased or hauled away at no cost to be made into a new product? How much of it, after going through our expensive sorting facility, was actually landfilled (either directly or through a buyer who had to buy it, but had no place to re-sell it)? In other words, how much tonnage collected was actually useful recyclable material? How do these numbers compare, before and after the program? It sounds like the City deployed fewer carts and collected less tonnage than projected, but again, there are data points missing, as there were when the program was first presented to Council, so it’s hard to draw any conclusions.

It’ll be interesting to see follow-up data on the privatization of the compost facility, too.

On a separate note, I’ve been collecting my points since this program started and would love to donate them toward hiring more police and firefighters rather than getting a free magazine subscription or something. Is that something the City could set up?

In our political system why does it matter if one Ward has more residents than another? Seems like a waste of time and money to me.