Countywide trash pickup could face opposition
GREENSBORO — Guilford County is still refining its plan for universal garbage pickup, which will provide garbage service for all county residents living outside incorporated cities. County leaders hope they can have a plan in place by the end of the year.
“We’ve had a meeting with the solid waste committee, and we’re looking at all the details that have to be covered,” said County Commissioner Kirk Perkins. “It’s kind of tricky because we want to be sure we do it right when we do it.”
County residents have to pay private garbage services if they want collection — or haul their trash to a landfill themselves. Perkins and county staff members envision a system where private companies bid to handle all garbage collection in the county.
Those living in incorporated areas with their own garbage collection wouldn’t be charged. Those who need the service likely would pay less for it than they do now with the cost spread countywide — and people might be more inclined to use the service if they’re already paying for it, Perkins said.
A key problem the new plan would address: residents who don’t pay for pickup and dispose of their garbage in dangerous and illegal ways. Perkins said dumping in woods and gullies has long been a problem in the county — as has burning garbage.
Commissioner Billy Yow said he thinks the issue of illegal dumping should be taken up by the health department and not by imposing what amounts to a tax on people who may be doing nothing wrong. Not everyone creates the same amount of trash, Yow said, and some people who live in apartments or mobile home parks already have dumpster service.
“It’s government coming into people’s lives where it doesn’t belong,” he said. “It also shuts smaller hauling businesses out if they can’t service the whole county. Why put people out of those jobs?”
With the state banning plastics such as drink bottles from landfills last October, Perkins said it seemed the time had come for a system that would put waste disposal in the hands of professionals throughout the county.
“There are a lot of gaps in service right now,” Perkins said. “In the county, if someone rents a house but there’s no garbage pickup service, they have to figure out what to do with it. They bring it to neighbors who have collection. They sometimes bring it to business dumpsters. They even take it into the Greensboro city limits. There needs to be some better system.”
Some county residents who already pay for garbage pickup said they would have no problem with a countywide system.
“If it might even end up saving us money, I don’t see a downside,” said Karen Olsen . She said her family produces so much trash she can’t imagine hauling it themselves.
“Even if you take it to a landfill, you usually have to pay per bag. The whole thing is you just can’t get something for nothing.”
But residents who dispose of their garbage themselves said they don’t like the idea of the county charging them to have someone else do it.
“There’s no way anybody from the county or people they hire can do it better or cheaper for me than me just hauling it myself,” said Jim Scott, 48, a county resident who said he hauls trash in his pickup once every few weeks.
“But they’ll still charge me for it.”
Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com
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