Anchorage Daily News

Big changes are coming curbside for about a third of Solid Waste Services' residential trash customers. Starting with Monday's pickups, the second phase of its automated collection service, along with curbside recycling, kicks in.

Click to enlarge

Story tools

Comments (0)

E-mail a friend

Print

Share on Facebook

Digg this

Seed Newsvine

Send link via AIM

Follow on Twitter

Font size : A | A | A

The change will affect some 3,600 customers within the city-owned garbage collection zone, which covers areas north of Tudor and west of Muldoon.

With auto-service, trash cans are picked up and dumped by the truck's mechanical arms. Same with the recycling cans, which will be emptied every other week.

The new services comes with a Pay-as-You-Throw rate structure, with customers charged by the size of the cans they need -- the bigger the can, the bigger the price.

Moving to the automated system is more efficient, easier on workers' bodies, and helps keep neighborhoods tidy, according to Donna Mears of SWS.

Done manually, the driver gets out of the truck at each stop, picks up the can, empties it, puts it back, gets back in the truck and drives to the next stop -- 440 times a day. With the truck's mechanical arms doing the heavy lifting, drivers can now handle 710 stops a day. And they won't be exposed to all the nasty stuff inside those cans, like broken glass, needles, dog feces and disposable diapers.

Auto-service mean your old trash cans are out. The new service comes with cans made to fit the truck's mechanical arms -- two "roll carts," one for trash and a 96-gallon cart for recyclables. Those getting the new service should have them by now.

All trash must fit inside the new carts. Customers will be able to change the size of their carts once for free within the first six months of service. After that, the cost of swapping is $30.

The first group of SWS's 12,500 customers got the new service last year. All should have it by next year, Mears said.

She expects it will take time for people to get used to the new system. As expected, there was some grumbling last year.

"It's a big change, more for some people than others," she said. "Within a couple of weeks, those calls went way down."

The new service costs more.

Previously, residential service for up to four, 32-gallon cans cost $18.25 a month. With auto service and recycling, the equivalent (two, 64-gallon carts) costs $46.50 a month.

But, as Mears points out, customers who haven't bothered with recycling should be able to significantly reduce their trash volume by diverting these things to the recycling carts. Customers who got the new service last year are recycling an average of 22 percent of their trash, according to SWS.

Weekly pickup of a 48-gallon trash cart, which the majority of customers are choosing, runs $19.10 a month. One, 64-gallon cart costs $26.56 a month. The 96-gallon trash cart is $36.50 a month.

Replacing a lost, stolen or damaged cart costs $75.

About your old trash cans: Solid Waste Services will haul up to four of them away for free within the first six weeks. You'll need to slap special stickers on them, though. You'll find them in the user's guide packet attached to your shiny new carts.

Auto trash and recycling at a glance

What's new:

• Mechanical arms rather than human ones will pick up your cans.

• Curbside recycling, every other week on your regular pickup day.

• Higher rates.

• Your current trash cans are no good; you'll be issued new ones.

• Trash cans are no longer called trash cans; they are "roll carts."

• No more creative trash arrangement. The auto service can't pick up anything that's not inside the carts. Excess trash must be picked up separately for an additional charge of $10 per pickup plus $2 a bag. Trash poking up from the top that prevents lids from closely counts as excess. To arrange for excess pickup, call SWS Customer Service, 343-6250, at least one day before your regular pickup day.

What's not new:

• Collection days will stay the same, unless otherwise notified.

Roll Cart Rules

• Trash goes in the brown cart, recycling in the blue.

• Customers are responsible for keeping carts clean to avoid attracting animals.

• Carts need to be put away in a secure place and kept out of sight until pickup day.

• On those days, carts should be out by 7 a.m. and placed at the curb or edge of the street or alley, with wheels and handles facing the house. Carts must be at least three feet from mailboxes, parked cars or any other obstruction. When both trash and recycling carts are out, they, too, must be at least three feet apart to make room for the truck's automated arms.

Trash etiquette

• Bag it. That's the best way to keep carts clean.

• Bag it well. Fish carcasses, cat litter and other smelly discards should be bagged and sealed to prevent odors. Same for shredded paper, sawdust and other fine waste to prevent these things from freezing to the bottom of the can.

Curbside Recycling dos and don'ts

• Do not bag recyclables.

• No need to sort. All materials are baled together and shipped to a sorting facility.

• Into the blue carts go recyclables accepted at the Anchorage Recycling Center, but NOT plastic bags; they gum up the sorting machinery. And no glass. Glass recycling has been suspended until further notice.

More questions?

For more information, and to find a copy of "Your Roll Cart User's Guide," go to www.muni.org/sws. Or call SWS customer service, 343-6250.

Find Debra McKinney online at adn.com/contact/dmckinney or call 257-4465.

ADVERTISEMENT