Photo by Ingrid Schnader.
Where a dumpster used to sit outside of Cahaba Cycles is now empty. The businesses lost its trash services when the city made changes to its trash and garbage collection.
A change in the city’s trash and garbage collection is forcing some businesses and condo or apartment-dwellers to find new services.
Ward 5 Councilor Jennifer Andress sent an email to her constituents explaining the change. She said none of the surrounding cities service commercial businesses, and the city was picking up trash for some businesses and not others. Many of these businesses are on 18th Street, and some are in West Homewood.
“Some businesses downtown are paying for their own dumpsters, and their neighbors have been dumping garbage into them without permission,” the email said. “Other businesses stack boxes with packing peanuts to be picked up, and our crews are spending entire afternoons picking up peanuts flying down the alleys into downtown. It just has become an untenable situation, and last summer a downtown business owner came to the council to ask for an equitable solution for all of Homewood businesses.”
To serve all commercial businesses, the city would have to purchase two additional lift trucks and hire 10 more crew workers, Andress said in the email. Instead, all commercial businesses now have to provide their own garbage services.
Residents of apartments and condos are also affected. “Attached dwellings of more than eight units, or other structures designated for use primarily for transient residents,” will also no longer receive trash services from the city, according to a letter by Public Works Director Berkley Squires. Only single-family residential premises, as defined by the zoning ordinance, will continue receiving the city’s services.
The change went into effect July 1. The collection change was adopted by Ordinance No. 2792, which can be viewed online at cityofhomewood.com/ordinances.