Photo: Ready to go!
“Where’rah my barrels?”
That clarion call has been heard from homeowners throughout Belmont as the slow rollout of the new trash and recycling carts scheduled for the past week has reached just about half of Belmont’s households.
And while the new automated garbage and recycling collection system starting today, Monday, July 2, don’t fret that you’ll need to store your trash during the ongoing heat wave. According to the Department of Public Works, if you haven’t seen your new trash and recycling carts, just continue using the old barrels. At least for one more week.
Micheal Santoro, head of the DPW’s Highway Division, said Waste Management – Belmont’s new collection provider – has supplied just about 50 percent residences with a pair of carts. Santoro said that percentage of carts is what Waste Management expected to deliver the first week with the rest of the households receiving their either this week or next week. Some streets such as Pleasant and Beech received new carts this morning.
No resident who still hasn’t obtained carts will be left holding the bag (of garbage); just keep using existing barrels until the new ones arrive, said Santoro.
Now, what to do with your old barrels and recycling bins? Well, the DPW hopes you’ll keep them around for collecting yard waste (they’ll need “Yard Waste” stickers), leaves and other for other uses. The reason they aren’t being disposed of by the town? Apparently, there currently isn’t a market for “rigid plastics” which the old barrels are considered. The DPW is hoping to take the old barrels during the annual DPW Recycle Day in October when it will be profitable or breakeven. If not, the DPW will likely hold a day to collect these items and dispose of them as trash.
People moved out last weekend before the bins were delivered. There is a lot of trash left by them and it needs to be picked up.
This was a bad week to start a big change like this – a holiday week and 1st of the month when people are moving. I’ve seen other homes with “move out’ trash in front. I have only seen ONE Premier truck working in town today! This needs to be resolved especially with all the rodent problems Belmont is experiencing.
Does anyone know what the plan is for excess recycling once you’ve exceeded the limit of the blue barrel? I’m pretty sure that we blow past that volume frequently and my understanding is that recycling that exceeds the volume of the bin will not be picked up?
Reading the FAQs available, it is evident that addressing excess trash has been considered and described well, but I can’t find anything on excess recycling. I know I’m not the only one in this situation.
We received both the trash and the recycle barrels. We put them both out on Tuesday, our normal recycle day. The trash was picked up, but the recycle barrel was not. Should we put out the recycle barrel next week?
Here’s the problem. Russell, the previous vendor, took our big barrel last week. We didn’t ask them to do this.