The city’s plan to cancel twice-a-year yard waste pickup with the introduction of the cart system for waste collection isn’t expected to affect city residents for a couple of years.
City hall’s plan is to end the spring and fall yard waste collections all at once across the whole city when everyone has their bins, not one-third of the city at a time, said Dean Wyman, the city’s general manager of solid waste resources.
That’s the plan “unless council changes the service level” as part of city budgeting, he said in an interview Thursday.“Right now, that service will continue in the city as a whole until everyone has their carts. To the end of 2014,” he said.
Green, blue and grey bins are being delivered this fall to a first batch of homes, with another one-third of homes to get them next year and the final one-third to get them in the fall of 2014.
As a result, the first batches of residents getting bins will have two ways to get rid of yard waste at curbside – through the two annual yard waste pickups and also every week by topping up their green bins.
Residents getting their carts this fall are being advised that they can top up the household organic waste they put in their green bins with yard waste, including grass clippings, Wyman said. It all goes to the new organics plant to be turned into compost.
City hall plans to save money by replacing the twice-a-year pickups with topping up of green bins.
The fall yard waste collection starts Oct. 29, with yard waste being collected on people’s regular collection day during the week that their clear-bag garbage is picked up. That’s during the week of Oct. 29 to Nov. 2 for Week B collection, and during the week of Nov. 5-9 for Week A collection.
The fall yard waste collection includes pickup of leaves placed on the curb in kraft bags, so long as they’re put out on the prescribed pickup date, Wyman said.
Loose leaf pickup is a separate matter that’s handled not by Wyman’s department, but rather by the city’s public works department.