Columbia saw a few hiccups on first day of automated roll cart pickup. What leaders said
When the city started its automated trash collection system Monday, residents may still have seen solid waste workers dumping bags by hand into a truck. There is a reason for it, Columbia Utilities leadership said Monday during the city council meeting.
Comments both online and at the meeting noted other hiccups with the first days of pickups. This included confusion over whether carts should go on the street in front of a curb, if one is available, or the easement next to the street since placing carts in the street is causing sight-line issues and bike-lane blockage. Some residences also did not have the radius around the cart for pickup, comments noted.
Utilities Director Dave Sorrell addressed the issues.
"Any time you start a new program such as this you are going to have challenges with customers and staff. Overall, if today was the worst day we had, then it still was a pretty good start," he said.
While the city does have a majority of its new collection trucks in, three smaller trucks are not yet here, which the city knew about, he added, noting they'll be in the city by April. Two of the full-size trucks also were not operational Monday, which meant sending out a truck for hand collections instead, Sorrell said.
"Most of the staff came back pretty satisfied. They got done in about an eight-hour day," he said. "We had some challenges with people not following instructions, placing bags out at the curb, but we are dealing with that with some of our enforcement folks.
"We're not issuing citations, but trying to educate (people) so next week when we come back we don't have those same problems."
The main reason behind the front-of-curb, instead of in the easement, request from the city was mostly to ensure sidewalks were not blocked, said Shawn Carrico with Columbia utilities.
"If there's not a sidewalk there, then certainly they can be right up there and there were many carts in the yard and they were able to get them and service them without any problem. Just so long as they are not blocking sidewalks," he said.
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Expressions of gratitude were given by Mayor Barbara Buffaloe and other council members to staff for their efforts in "rolling out with roll carts" Monday.
Ward 2 Council member Rachel Proffitt shared that as she was behind a truck on Broadway the driver had noticed an empty cart that had tipped over on its side and the driver used the truck's retrieval arm to set the cart upright.
"I am really grateful to staff who are doing what they're supposed to, but this was the above and beyond," she said. "This is the first day of the first time we are doing this and I think it went really well."
Charles Dunlap covers local government, community stories and other general subjects for the Tribune. You can reach him at cdunlap@columbiatribune.com or @CD_CDT on Twitter. Subscribe to support vital local journalism.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbia Solid Waste addresses first-day automated trash pickup issues
