November 17, 2022
By: Dwayne Page
No more overflowing dumpsters!
County Mayor Matt Adcock has announced the implementation of a new solid waste management plan aimed primarily at emptying compactors and dumpsters more often at the county’s garbage collection convenience sites.
Under the plan, the county has identified highest to lowest priority convenience sites in three established districts based on how often the public makes use of them. Sanitation truck drivers will now pick up garbage only from the convenience sites in their assigned district. The idea is to streamline the routes and the time it takes to run them, so drivers are able to make pickups more often especially at the priority convenience sites to keep the trash from piling up and overflowing from the dumpsters. All garbage from all the sites is taken to the county’s transfer station.
The plan calls for the truck drivers to start their day at 6 a.m. and work through 2:30 p.m. According to County Mayor Adcock, this schedule will ensure that compactors and dumpsters are empty before the convenience sites open to the public Monday through Saturday at 9 a.m. Garbage pickups from the sites will be made at least once a day and sometimes more often.
“With this plan every convenience site will get attention every single day as well as the schools,” said County Mayor Adcock. “The convenience sites are listed in order from highest priority to lowest priority. This is determined by how busy each site is. This ensures that the highest priority sites are taken care of before the convenience site opens to the public. Instead of trying to empty every dumpster in the site before moving to the next one, the driver operator will empty only the compactor and one open top dumpster before moving to the next site. Before, only a few sites got attention in one day and with some sites it was every other day or longer. Under this plan, after a driver completes the route in his district, he will circle back to the highest priority sites and others if time permits to again unload as many open top dumpsters as possible until his shift is over,” said County Mayor Adcock.
Four convenience sites under the plan make up district 1 including Keltonburg, Blue Springs, Belk, and the Highway 56 or Shiny Rock location which is designated the highest priority pickup site in that district.
The plan’s district 2 includes Alexandria, Liberty, Temperance Hall, and Wolf Creek locations with Snow Hill being the highest priority site.
District 3 sites are Midway, the landfill at Johnson’s Chapel, Silver Point, and Village Market which is the highest priority location
One driver is assigned to pick up garbage at identified auxiliary sites which includes all schools, Austin Bottom, customer cans, and the jail among others.
This is the second sanitation policy change within the past month.
Effective October 30, County Mayor Adcock announced that all 12 DeKalb County Garbage Collection Convenience sites are to be closed to the public on Sundays but open Mondays through Saturdays from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m.
Adcock said he made this decision to give the 24 part time employees who man the convenience sites Sundays off and to bring more uniformity to the operating hours during the week. Each of the employees are now scheduled to work 27 hours per week.