HAVERHILL – The City and Capitol Waste Services, the City’s trash hauler, are pleased to announce Haverhill’s new wheeled trash cart program. In the spring of 2016, the City will be switching from traditional trash barrels and manual trash collection to a new technologically advanced waste collection system. The program is designed to improve collection efficiency, enhance performance, and provides cleaner city streets and neighborhoods. It will also reduce the cost to Haverhill taxpayers of sending unnecessary trash to the Covanta Waste-to-Energy facility with estimated savings over $450,000 in the first year alone!
Automated trash collection is used by many communities in Massachusetts, New England and the rest of the country and works by having a sanitation worker control a robotic arm from inside the trash collection vehicle which has the ability to lift the specialized cart and dump the trash contents into the vehicle. The sanitation worker is able to do this safely within the vehicle, unexposed to the harsh elements and without having to manually lift heavy trash carts. The new methodology will also help limit the debris and litter that often flies out of traditional garbage cans onto Haverhill’s streets and yards.
In order to obtain feedback and firsthand experience from residents on the use of wheeled trash carts, the City implemented a pilot program during the past year by distributing over 400 wheeled carts to randomly selected residences. Participants were randomly chosen from a computer generated program. Respondents from a recent survey indicated that over 97% preferred to use the wheeled trash cart instead of their previous method and that they would recommend the City implement this program city-wide. Please review the results of the survey by pasting the link into your browser… https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-FZQWDKFC/
Each eligible household will receive one (1), sixty-four (64) gallon wheeled cart for their weekly trash. There is NO COST to the residents for these wheeled trash carts and they are covered under a 10-year warranty. Carts are manufactured to be very rugged with an attached, tight fitting lid that will keep rodents, rain and snow out of the container. Carts will be delivered directly to each household in the spring along with an informative guide that goes into detail about how the program works and how to use the wheeled trash cart. Only officially supplied carts will be collected on trash day. Delivering the carts citywide may take upwards of 2-3 weeks to complete. Recycling collection and methodology will NOT change and will continue to be picked up manually,every other week. We recommend that residents repurpose their “old” trash barrels into recycling containers once they receive the new wheeled trash cart.
Residents will still be allowed to place one (1) bulky waste item curbside per household per week at no charge.Bulky waste items include furniture, mattresses, tables, and other similar items that don’t fit in the wheeled trash cart. The new trash collection vehicles cannot accept bulky waste items. Therefore, bulky waste items must be scheduled for special collection by calling Capitol Waste. An additional benefit of this program is that residents are not limited to just one (1) bulky item per week, however a nominal fee applies if you have two (2) or more items. For example, under current regulations if you would like to dispose of a living room set it could take several weeks as you are only allowed one (1) per week. With this new program, you can schedule the collection of those items to be picked up all at once with no limit, as long as all items are accounted and paid for.
To help residents prepare for the new program and understand the changes, the City will conduct a public outreach campaign. The educational campaign will include mailings, presentations, and informational programming on the City website. The City will also hold public meetings in each of the five trash routes with the goal of ensuring residents are ready for the switch to automated trash collection next spring.