Oxford to Roll Out New Trash Carts/System in Late February

By Alyssa Schnugg

News editor

alyssa.schnugg@hottytoddy.com

Oxford residents will soon be getting a gift from the Oxford Environmental Services department – a new 95-gallon trash can.

The new roll-out garbage can will be used with the city’s automated collection trucks which will end the days of having employees hanging off the back of trucks to collect trash.

Oxford Environmental Services Superintendent Amberlynn Liles said she expects the new trash cans to be delivered to each home in late February. A few neighborhoods with very narrow roads will continue to have trash collected as it is now but will still receive one of the new carts.

All trash will be required to be in the new cans that will be registered to each home, in case of theft.

A resident can request a second can for an extra $20 a month on their solid waste bill. There will be no extra cost for the first can.

Information bags will be attached to the cans to explain the new process. The city will continue to collect trash twice a week. Residents are required to have all trash in the new can with the lid able to be closed and put out by 6 a.m. on trash collection days. The handle of the can should face the house for the automated trucks to be able to pick up the can without damaging it.

Inside the informational bag will be yellow stickers that residents can place on their current garbage cans if they wish the city to collect them for recycling. Residents can keep their own cans to use for other purposes, they just won’t be able to use them for trash collection.

“You can do whatever you want with your old cans – you can use to collect rainwater, for leaves, save it for a snow day – or we will recycle them,” Liles said.

Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill said no one is losing their jobs over the new trash collection service.

“We have people who will be retiring and we’re moving people around,” she said Monday during a Board of Aldermen work session.

The Board of Aldermen is expected to vote on the ordinance changes for the new system during a February board meeting.