Hoover plans to change garbage, recycling collector

The Hoover City Council has cleared the way for a new company to take over the city’s garbage and recycling collection beginning on Oct. 1 with some changes in service and cost savings to the city.

Hoover’s current collection company is Republic Services, which picks up residents’ garbage twice a week and recyclables every Wednesday.

The Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority, a consortium formed by five cities (including Hoover), has been negotiating a new agreement with Amwaste.

Under that proposed agreement, Amwaste would pick up garbage and/or recyclables twice a week, with the items commingled together. All items collected in the first pickup of the week would go to a landfill, and all items collected in the second pickup would go to a company in Montgomery called RePower South, which would sort the materials and pull out any items that can be recycled, Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice said.

Residents would no longer be required to separate their recyclables, but people who want to make a special effort to recycle could save those items to put out for the second pickup, Councilman Casey Middlebrooks said.

Amwaste has been providing this type of service to Vestavia Hills for 10 months and has actually increased the volume of recycled materials coming from Vestavia Hills by 75%, Rice said.

Running the garbage and recycling trucks twice a week instead of a combined three times a week saves money.

Residents’ pickup days could change because the city will be switching from two routes to three routes, Rice said. Now, some residents’ garbage is picked up on Mondays and Thursdays or Tuesdays and Fridays. The new proposal is to have pickup on Mondays and Thursdays, Tuesdays and Fridays, or Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Amwaste, once officially approved as the service provider, was to draw up proposed new routes and pick up zones for the city to approve, Rice said.

RePower South’s sorting facility in Montgomery accepts a wider variety of recyclable materials, including all types of plastics with recycle markings — not just plastics with a No. 1 or No. 2 on them, Rice said.

Another big change is that residents now will be required to bag any leaves they want picked up, instead of having a leaf vacuum truck pick them up, Rice said. The leaf vacuuming has proven to be an inefficient way of collection, and Hoover is one of the last cities in central Alabama that still vacuums leaves, he said.

Residents will place their bagged leaves by the curb for pickup either with regular garbage (if in a small quantity) or by a boom truck (for larger amounts of leaves), Rice said. Bagging the leaves will result in a substantial savings in money and fewer leaves being washed into stormwater drains and waterways, he said. It also should make leaf collection go more quickly because vacuuming leaves takes longer, especially when leaves are wet, Rice said.

Currently, Republic uses nine leaf vacuum trucks and 10 boom trucks in Hoover to pick up yard debris and large bulk items such as furniture and appliances. The new proposal is for Amwaste to use 12 boom trucks (and no leaf vacuum trucks) in Hoover.

Hoover currently pays Republic about $8 million a year to pick up garbage, recycling and other waste from 26,514 single-family houses and condominiums, Rice said. With escalating costs, if Hoover were to keep the same kind of service provided now, the city would pay $9.57 million a year, he said.

The new proposal (with the different level of service) would cost the city $7.17 million, which is about $892,000 less than the current cost, Rice said.

Amwaste is in the process of trying to acquire the garbage and recycling carts already being used in Hoover, and if Amwaste is successful, residents would simply keep the carts they already use, Rice said.

Councilman Mike Shaw said he initially was skeptical of the proposed changes but after reviewing them more carefully believes it will be a smarter way to do recycling.

Council President John Lyda said he had been concerned the city would not be able to continue offering a recycling option due to escalating costs in that industry, but the creativity and ingenuity involved with this new proposal is remarkable and much appreciated.

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