Beginning Thursday, July 8, 2021 a second company – Southern Disaster Recovery (SDR) – will collect yard and bulk waste that is on the curb in front of people’s houses. This is in addition to Ceres Environmental Operations, which began collections last week. Both contracts are set to last up to eight weeks, during which time they will help get collections caught up and back on schedule.
The normal collection schedule already used by Solid Waste will be maintained, so people are asked to put their yard waste on the curb by Sunday night of their scheduled week. To find out which week you can expect collection, click here and enter in your address.
“What we needed was more people and more resources, so we found a way to make that happen. We can’t have collections remain this far behind, and by bringing these companies on board, our Solid Waste crews can focus on missed recycling and other issues that arise,” says Mayor Lester Miller. “We have made significant progress on recycling collections, and we expect to see similar progress from these companies when it comes to yard and bulk waste.”
Hiring private companies to collect yard waste was one of several changes Mayor Miller announced on June 24 to improve trash and recycling pick up, an issue that has affected every area of town for several months.
The other major change was hiring Ryland Environmental to provide trash, recycling, and yard waste collection for about 20% of the county by July 26. This will allow the current company, Waste Management, to reallocate their staff and equipment to the rest of the county, which would improve the services there. Once the addresses have been identified and a new schedule developed, Macon-Bibb will notify the public.
People will not see any increase to their monthly solid waste payments. The county will offset the cost of Ryland Environmental from the amount currently paid to Waste Management, and the cost of the yard waste collection companies will come from the Solid Waste Department’s budget.
To report a missed trash or recycling pickup, call Waste Management at 405-5000. You can also report them – and miss yard waste pick up – through SeeClickFix at www.maconbibb.us/seeclickfix or the mobile app.