About 10,000 households in select neighborhoods throughout Syracuse will soon begin using city-issued garbage trucks as the city moves forward with the early stages of semi-automated garbage collection. The large containers with wheels and lids will be rolling out from April.
Syracuse City Chief Operating Officer Corey Driscoll Dunham told local councils Wednesday that there will be significant publicity through neighborhood groups, mailers and social media to use the garbage trucks.
“We need to inform those who are receiving carts,” said Driscoll Dunham. “To let them know what to do with these carts, when to get them and what this change means for them. We also need to communicate with those people who don’t get carts right away to let them know what to expect to do.”
Driscoll Dunham said residents in the first phase, which covers about 20% of the city, would begin using the new carts in May or June. The rest of Syracuse would follow later in the summer. She said the goal is to improve efficiency and worker safety, and reduce waste.
Department of Public Works Inspector Sam Perry said the carts should solve local residents’ problems with early or late departures, which are already against city ordinances.
“We would address that as soon as it comes up, but the big benefit of that is that we won’t have the unintended consequences that come with it,” Perry said. “As for the rodents that get into the trash, the wind blows them around the neighborhood. We get a lot of complaints.”
Instead of lifting heavy dumpsters into a truck and dumping them, they wheeled the cart to an arm of the truck, which picked it up and dumped the contents. City councilors are not opposed to the carts, but many questioned who would get them. Carts are delivered to homes or buildings with 1 to 3 units; those with four or more people would have to find a private carrier under a revised regulation. Corey Dunham says it’s not able to service larger complexes that qualify as commercial real estate rather than residential.
“If we’re fair and provide one car per unit, how are we going to have 20 cars on the curb…” Dunham said.
“Well, how many carts do you think private truckers will have? They’ll have 20 carts there too,” interjected Councilor Pat Hogan.
“They can have a dumpster, they can have it picked up twice a week,” Dunham replied. “They can work with a private carrier to find what is right for their building’s needs. We need to offer the same standard service to all residential properties.”
Dunham acknowledged that changing the service for the larger properties could be difficult at first. She estimates annual combined savings of about $1.4 million to $2.1 million from reduced labor costs and employee tips. No job cuts are planned. The city hopes to implement the recycling program next year.
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