Beginning Thursday, Aug. 1, Town of Wake Forest and Republic Services crews will begin “tagging” residents that violate trash, recycling and yard waste collection guidelines. Town sanitation customers may receive a Non-Collection Notice tag for a variety of reasons, including several common violations:
- Trash/recycling carts that are overfull, too close to another cart or blocked
- Trash/recycling placed in the wrong cart or improper container
- Trash/recycling carts that contain hazardous materials, soil, concrete or brick
- Bulk trash that includes cardboard that needs to be broken down
- Items that must be scheduled for bulk collection
- Electronics that are not eligible for curbside pickup
- Yard waste that exceeds four cubic yards permitted per household
- Yard waste left behind by a contractor
- Limbs, leaves and trash that must be separated
- Leaves containing soil, rocks, limbs, concrete or brick
The first time a resident violates any of these or other collection guidelines, crews will leave a violation notice – but collect the materials placed at the curb. For each future violation, the resident will receive a non-collection notice that identifies the issue and explains why their materials were not collected.
Go to the Town of Wake Forest website and look at the Waste Wizard to make sure you are putting the correct items in the right containers.
3 Responses
On numerous occassions, I have seen the garbage truck put a trash bin back down in a way that moves the recycling bin over, pushing it out of place (despite the fact that both bins were properly set out at the street, with appropriate space between them). And, there are always a few trash bins on my street that end up knocked over– I.e., were not put back down properly after the trash was emptied by the garbage truck operator. So, whoever is judging the placement of trash bins and the spacing between them had better be in an advance team that arrives before any garbage truck operator touches the bins. Otherwise, some households will find their recycling uncollected through no fault of their own.
I certainly do have a problem with these rules. This is the garbage police at its worst. One strike and you’re out. This is an outrage, its the town’s responsibility to pick up the garbage. That is why we pay taxes. There is no process for review or re-reinstatement process. See item I. Wont pick up garbage because container to is too close to another. Who is going to measure this and decide what is “Too Full” How does that work? What about Christmas time other holidays and birthdays? You want citizens to hold extra garbage that wont fit in the roll out containers where? Wont pick it up again for how long. Maybe the Mayor won’t mind if I dump my extra garbage in her container. So mine won’t be too full.
This one strike and you’re out policy is designed to make the except the rule and thus allow the town’s garbage collector to get paid and not do their jobs. Its an policy that needs to be revised to some common sense rule that actually serves the public interest and keeps the town clean and gets the trash picked up.
Did the town council vote on this? Why are we now hearing about its as a done deal. Where is the democratic process in creating such rules?
I certainly have no problem with the trash/recycling guidelines, but how in the name of good sense does the town plan to monitor this when the truck picks up a container and dumps in the hopper. Maybe they have hired an inspector to look in every bin at curbside! Camera in the truck? That has to be monitored and once a prohibited item is dumped, it cannot be returned to the curb as uncollectable. Seems to me we are still on the “honor” system of following guidelines.