Thursday, March 19, 2015

Big changes coming to county roadside yard trash pickup program

Franklin County is cracking down on people using the county’s roadside yard trash program as their own garbage company.
Franklin County provides roadside pickup for certain types of yard trash, specifically leaves and small branches, but that program is being abused by some residents.
Some people hide household garbage under the yard trash – commission chairman William Massey said 15 bags of household trash was found hidden in one pile in Carrabelle not that long ago.
People also put larger pieces of yard trash than is allowed on the roadside.
County solid waste director Fonda David said that’s not just making the county look bad but it is also damaging equipment.
The county has already replaced one boom and is in the process of replacing another.
Commissioner Pinki Jackel pointed out that it’s not just homeowners abusing the program, but also commercial landscape companies that are dumping huge amounts of cuttings on the roadside.
Now the county says it is going back to the basics.
It will only pick up the smaller pieces of yard trash and leave household garbage and other items that aren’t supposed to be on the roadside.
Before they take that step they will do one more county-wide pickup and begin an education campaign to hopefully cut down on the illegal dumping.
County planner Alan Pierce said if the commission really wants to address the problem at some point it will have to mandate garbage pickup county-wide.
Currently only the City of Apalachicola has mandatory garbage service; and because of that the city doesn’t have the same problem with household trash that the rest of the county does.
Mister Pierce said county taxpayers are already paying for the trash pickup – just in a very unstructured way.
He added that the cost of garbage is borne by everybody and everybody needs to contribute.




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