Garbage 101

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POCATELLO — Think taking out the trash is simple?

Then why is the Pocatello area flunking Garbage 101?

The area’s sanitation experts estimate 80 percent of local households make some mistake when they leave their garbage carts at the curbside — and a littered community is the result.

Tuesday morning, Bill and Jami Jones, of Snake River Dispose-All Inc., Pocatello Sanitation Supervisor K. Randy Allen, Stoney Tucker, of PSI Environmental, and Bannock County Landfill Director Therese Wight offered residents advice on how to help keep the town clean.

The biggest problem, they say, is that many residents aren’t bagging and tying their garbage. That simple step alone could eliminate the brunt of the litter problem, they say.

If garbage isn’t bagged, Tucker said wind gusts can blow trash as it falls from an autocart into a garbage truck hopper.

“As soon as you start dumping a can with the winds we’ve had recently you could end up with half of it out before you get it in the truck,” Tucker said. “A lot of them bag but still put in loose stuff. Newspaper and grocery store plastic bags are the worst.”

The officials say drivers serve between 500 and 1,000 homes each day and wouldn’t have time to finish their routes if they stopped to chase blowing refuse every time they encountered unbagged trash.

Allen said the city has attempted to curb the problem — to no avail — by replacing retractable screens with a solid material. The problem is three-fold, Allen said. Loose trash blows when it’s falling from the can, it blows out of the trucks and it blows throughout the landfill when its dumped. Catch fences are in place within the landfill to limit the amount of garbage that can blow away.

At his household, Allen throws his trash in a can, lined with a bag, first and then ties it and places his garbage in a city autocart. He notes bags designed to fit an autocart are expensive.

Wight believes the community doesn’t realize the extent of the problem, which she attributes to a lack of education on the matter. She said Boy Scout troops and inmates from Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center spend countless hours cleaning roadsides, and their efforts simply scratch the surface.

Any kind of bag — even a grocery store sack — will work, she said. And don’t forget to tie.

“I’m guilty of it a lot of times, too. If I’m in a hurry, I’ll throw it out without tying it,” Wight admitted. “The bottom line is keeping the community clean.”

Overfilled autocarts can also contribute to litter.

“Overloading is a big problem,” Bill Jones said. “People take great pride in their balancing act with a can. Really what they should be doing is getting another can.”

Even leaving autocarts facing in the wrong direction can pose problems. The autocarts should be positioned with the wheels and back handle facing the home and the opening facing the street. Otherwise, lids can break off. Bill Jones estimates 30 percent of customers position their autocarts incorrectly.

Furthermore, autocarts should be stored at least 5 feet from the nearest object and returned to homes after they are emptied to reduce their likelihood of getting damaged or interfering with snow removal efforts, Bill Jones said.

Christmas trees should not be left at curbsides. Rather, they should be taken to drop-off sites at designated recycling locations in town.

Jami Jones urged residents not to throw ash in trash cans. Too often, ash combusts and starts costly fires inside of garbage trucks. Last year, she said an ash-caused fire destroyed one of her company’s garbage trucks. And about a week ago, she said a load of burning garbage had to be dumped near Chubbuck City Hall and extinguished on-site — at the cost of about $2,000 for clean-up.

She suggests spreading ash on flower beds or gardens as a fertilizer.

In addition, grass clippings burn easily and should be bagged or composted. The landfill now accepts grass, manure, straw, hay and leaves for composting.

Jami Jones said, “The garbage doesn’t just disappear when you put it in a can.”

By John O’Connell

Journal writer

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