Large number of Columbia residents give input on trash collection at meeting
The city is ramping up to make changes to Columbia’s trash collection process.
But before any any solutions make way to the City Council, the first step in the timeline is to get input from the community.
Columbia Solid Waste held an open meeting Tuesday at the Activity and Recreation Center, where community members filled out surveys and spoke to city utility officials. The line to get into the conference room grew large enough to go out the door within the first five minutes.
“We're giving the customers a chance to meet with City of Columbia utilities representatives in a one-on-one setting,” City Utilities spokesman Matt Nestor said. “So [if] they have questions about the trash collection process or if they wanna leave comments about what they think is best for the city, they'll be able to do that in a kind of an informal setting.”
All input from the community will be gathered and presented to City Council.
“Personally, I am wondering if this meeting really will yield input or if it's more window dressing,” Alison Kaiser of Columbia said at the meeting. “I hope not… Maybe I need to do a better job as a citizen to go to council meetings and you know, provide input. But I think it's just too important for us to leave to the bureaucrats.”
Last month, the city dropped the requirements to use logo trash bags, causing the process to start from scratch. While no new measures have been officially passed, Nestor confirmed that the city is looking at an automated collection system that could include roll carts.
“We’ve been having a problem hiring and retaining staff, in residential collections, for the last seven or eight years,” Nestor said. “It's a dangerous job. It's a hard job to do. So our position is that moving to an automated collection will help ease some of that and make that a more desirable job that people will want to do.”
In years past, the city has used manual trash collection processes, where workers would hang off the back of the trucks then hop off to collect trash. An automated system would require a metal clamp on the trucks to automatically empty garbage cans.
“I'm very concerned about worker safety because I know that we have a lot of stats on that and I think that it'll be good to get the automatic trucks,” Maddie White, a student at the University of Missouri, said. “I know a lot of people are worried about the fact that it would decrease the jobs, but really, they are understaffed already… But I think it would just be good for everything all around.”
A second input meeting will be held 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31 at the ARC. Comments and questions can also be made online.
