Nearly one-third of Columbia curbside trash pickup customers respond to roll cart selection postcard
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Columbia City Council on Monday amended its 2024 annual budget to allocate funds for the purchase of roll carts for an automated residential curbside refuse collection.
According to the City Council agenda, city staff is working to buy 36,200 roll carts for the program which cost roughly $2.2 million. At the end of the 2023 financial year, the city spent $1.2 million to purchase some of the carts using a portion of the Solid Waste budget. With Monday’s vote, the council approved $995,000 to be spent from the Solid Waste Vehicle Equipment Fund to buy the remaining roll carts.
About two weeks ago, the city began sending out postcards with a verification code to 36,200 of Columbia’s curbside customers to choose a cart size. According to the City Utilities spokesman Matt Nester, roughly one-third (31.4%) of those customers responded by Friday, Oct. 13.
“Last I saw, we had about 11,400 responses,” Nestor said on Tuesday.
Residents would have the option of a 35-gallon, 64-gallon or 95- gallon each varying in price:
- 35-gallon: $12.87 per month
- 65-gallon: $17.37 per month (current rate used by City customers)
- 95-gallon: $22.50 per month
Information surrounding how many of each cart have been selected so far was not immediately available.
“We anticipated that most customers are going to get the 65-gallon cart, so we gave them the option that if they want the 65-gallon cart, they don’t have to respond,” Nestor said. “Just knowing a lot of the non-responses are looking for the 65-gallon cart, it’s hard to really gauge which way everything is leaning.”
Nester did acknowledge that some people have complained about not getting a card in the mail.
“I’ve received a couple of questions over email about cards,” Nester said. “The easiest thing is call the contact center at 573-874-2489 they’ll be able to verify your choice for you.”
Overall the city believes the program is running smoothly.
“We’re excited about the way the process is working and you know we have two weeks until the October 31 deadline and again, as we have mentioned before, after February when the carts are delivered people will have the opportunity then, 120 days, to judge for themselves and still be able to exchange the carts at that time if they ended up not getting what they needed.”
According to a September press release, customers can also log onto ColumbiaMo.rehrigvision1.com.
Solid Waste is transitioning to automated collection beginning March 4, according to previous reporting. Roll carts are expected to be delivered to residents in February. The decision to switch to an automated trash collection system was made during a March City Council meeting.
