Pickup for Birmingham’s new uniform trash bins start next week

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Thousands of Birmingham residents have new garbage bins as the city has just completed phase one of their new uniform trash can rollout.

About 20,000 new, uniform trash cans have been placed on eight different routes in the city. Public works crews are now working out the kinks in the new system, while still operating the old system for thousands of households.

“We are trying to make it more efficient,” Director of Birmingham’s Public Works Josh Yates said.

Around 100,000 new uniform trash bins are coming to the city of Birmingham in phases. For residents with new cans, pickup will now only be once a week.

“Our trucks hit the road Monday,” Yates said. “We are giving them some assistance with an extra truck, just trying to help them out on their routes while they learn the automated truck system.”

Twenty different routes throughout the city are still on the same schedule until their new trash cans come in. Phase two won’t start until the new year and there will be five phases total.

“The original cans will stay on their same schedule, twice a week pick up,” Yates said. “When we get new automated trucks in, those are the trucks that lift the carts, that’s when we are able to move and shift more carts out. Our current shift has rear loaders, which are done manually by hand.”

Yates said so far, things have gone good for phase one of the rollout, but they are still working through kinks.

“We have roughly had around two percent of issues,” Yates said. “Roughly 100 to 200 issues that we have experienced. “We have heard it’s too much garbage to fit in one cart, so we are going to bring some items to council to see if they want to add a second cart to purchase and different things like that.”

Yates said the carts will help with litter in the city because all trash has to be bagged and inside the cans. The new system will free up more public works crews and keep them safer.

“Driving the city twice a week is very inefficient,” Yates said. “As well as wear and tear on the trucks and equipment, so this will ultimately save money on repair of vehicles.”

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