Let’s talk trash: City of Warner Robins seeks to educate in light of new pickup company

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — The city of Warner Robins has taken several steps lately to ensure a presentable city, from establishing a blight taskforce, to revising an ordinance that clears up where grass is meant to be cut. However, what to do with those clippings has been cause for confusion lately, leading to the city to bring awareness to the rules regarding trash pickup for residents.

In a release, they explained pickup rules related to garbage, yard waste and bulk items.

For garbage, collection is once a week; trash must be securely bagged, in the garbage cart with handles facing the house, and with three feet of space around it.

Yard waste is collected every other week and is composed of grass clippings, tree limbs and shrubbery trimmings. Leaves and grass must be bagged tight, and curbside bundles of trees and shrubs must be no larger that five feet long and seven feet high.

Bulk Items, like appliances and furniture, are collected every other week, and are limited to 2 per household.

The recent switch for the city to their current trash pickup company, GFL Environmental, comes after a 25-year contract with Crisp County Solid Waste Management, according to the city. Representatives from Public Works explained several factors in what he said was lengthy process that led to the decision to switch.

“When you start looking around the middle Georgia area, and several of the cities in this area. Were getting as high as $25 to up around $28 a month when you’re talking about service. We didn’t want to go that high when dealing with services, when we started looking at different types of contracts and stuff. But when we finally settled on GFL, like I said, the priority was the cost effectiveness and also the pickup schedules,” Director of Public Works Craig Clifton said.

Clifton said a main point of confusion was in verbiage, leading citizens to become confused on how to dispose of yard waste, like leaves and branches.

“Basically the confusion was putting it in bags, and that’s when we’re talking about yard waste being put in bags as far as leaves, grass clippings go. And when we speak of bundling, they were talking mainly about limbs. And that’s where the confusion lies. So we’ve tried to change that wording or phrasing up a little bit to help us citizens out,” Clifton said.

Describing the process as a learning experience for both city and citizens, he mentioned the most likely reason trash is not picked up is if it is placed improperly, or if it is part of moving out. Those items must be disposed of by the resident or the property owner.

“When you’re looking at just the trash bins, there have been times — and this is where we try to get out and educate the citizens, when we meet with them one-on-one — where the trash bin is overloaded and they pile up the garbage next to the trash bin or something in bags and they think it’s all going to be picked up at one time. Well now, the way the contract reads, is anything in the bin gets picked up and anything outside the bin would be considered bulk items.” Clifton said.

This is in conjunction with multiple efforts over the year to help ensure the city is clean and presentable, with Clifton adding the city works through code enforcement and often directly with GFL during events.

“We don’t want [trash] to get out of control, like larger cities do, and that’s some of the conversations that we’ve had. Being a growing city like we are, we don’t want to get stuck in a small town mentality. We want to be able to grow with the city and keep the cleanliness as it is, or even better. And anything we can focus on to help out, we try to do,” Clifton said.

In turn, the city hopes they can be attractive to both residents and visitors.

“You want to have a representation that welcomes people in and wants people to come back. You don’t want to get a reputation where nobody wants to be here and they see, they see trash on the side of the road. And that’s the first impressions; you don’t like when somebody sees the trash on the side of the road, they don’t want to be here,” Clifton said. “So we want to keep it clean, and invite people, invite tourists in and welcome people, new people coming to the base, any type of representatives or anything to that extent. We want to keep it nice, beautify the city.”

Anyone with more questions about the trash pickup process or schedules can contact the city’s liaison at (478) 302-5554. Citizens can also call GFL Environmental with questions — or to schedule a pickup — at (478) 328-1080.

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