Rules set for garbage pickup
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on August 11, 2015 1:46 PM
When new regulations for city garbage collection take effect Sept. 14, Goldsboro residents whose garbage is not collected during regularly scheduled pickup times for any reason will have to take their trash to the Wayne County landfill themselves.
The landfill is located at 460-B South Landfill Road in Dudley. A tipping fee is charged for using the landfill -- $30 per ton of garbage or a $5 minimum fee. For the majority of household garbage brought in by residents, $5 will be charged.
One of the main reasons residents' garbage would not be collected is due to improper bin placement, which the city has been trying to inform the public of since implementing a "soft start" for its new automated trucks on June 1.
The new rules for proper bin placement and collection are:
* Place your bin on the edge of the curb or pavement in front of your residence with three feet of clearance in all directions, including three feet of space between recycling and refuse bins.
* Put bins out before 6 a.m. on your scheduled collection day.
* Do not allow your garbage bin to overflow and do not place bags on top of your recycling or refuse bins.
* Bins must be placed with the opening facing the road and the handle facing your home.
To see which day bins in various neighborhoods are collected, go to refuse.goldsboronc.gov.
When residents visit the landfill to dump their trash, their vehicles will be weighed to determine how much they are dumping.
"You pull up and there will be someone working, and they weigh your vehicle, then you dump your trash, then they weigh it again," Public Works Director Jose Martinez said. "So essentially, you pull up, you dump your trash and then you pay the worker."
There are other reasons residents might find themselves with uncollected garbage, he said.
"One of the biggest reasons trash wouldn't be collected would be if something is physically blocking the one-armed bandits (automated garbage trucks) from getting to the bins," Martinez said. "If there's trash on the sides, the one-armed bandit isn't going to be able to pick that up. If there's trash on top, we won't pick it up."
If residents feel they cannot help but have overflow at their containers, and do not wish to carry their extra garbage to the landfill, they can rent an extra garbage bin from the city for $4 per month.
One way to ensure that overflow does not become an issue for your home is to recycle more, Martinez said.
Goldsboro's recycling system is "commingled," meaning all recyclable items can be thrown into the same bin provided by the city. Items do not have to be separated to be recycled.
"We've had residents say, 'Well I didn't think you guys recycled anymore because I see you throw it all into the same dump truck,'" Martinez said. "The dump truck (used for recycling) and the trash truck look very similar, but we do recycle. We just do it all at once now instead of separating it into different categories."
Originally, the city planned on allowing city residents to use any of some 13 convenience sites throughout the county to dump their garbage if it was not collected. But that is no longer the case.
"We learned by talking to the landfill that city residents should not use any of the convenience sites because county residents pay a fee to maintain these sites," Martinez said. "The convenience sites don't have a means of taking money or payment. Therefore, the only option for a city resident that is not serviced is to either wait a week or to take their refuse to the landfill."
Outside of regular household garbage, the Wayne County landfill accepts items such as household appliances, asbestos, lead acid batteries only, aluminum, steel and aerosol cans, carpets and more. The landfill does not accept electronic items such as televisions, fax machines and computers.
For a full list of items that are accepted by the Wayne County landfill, go to www.waynegov.com/ page/463.