GILROY
– Starting this fall, Gilroy residents will have more trash
disposal options, but at a slightly higher cost.
GILROY – Starting this fall, Gilroy residents will have more trash disposal options, but at a slightly higher cost.
City Council approved Monday an expanded trash collecting program that will allow residents to throw out plastic bags and scrap metal like old toasters and pots and pans. Currently, only metal food cans, glass and plastics are collected and recycled.
Collection of yard waste will also be stepped up to once a week instead of the every-other-week schedule the city has been on. And, residents will be allowed to throw out food scraps with the waste from their yard.
“This is the newest, biggest step in recycling,” said Phil Couchee, general manager of South Valley Disposal & Recycling, the company that collects Gilroy’s trash.
The expanded services are tentatively slated to begin Oct. 1.
In exchange for the new services, residents will have to pay 4.6 percent more on their trash collection bills. For the average resident, this means their $20.80 bill will go up to $21.76.
The 96-cent increase is largely due to the additional services. It also includes what Couchee called a typical 1 to 2 percent increase due to inflation.
The city also will use the cost hike to hire a part-time code enforcement officer. The code enforcement officer will respond to complaints and notify residents or businesses of violations.
Typical complaints that now go largely unanswered involve apartment complexes with overflowing dumpsters, the storing of large trash items in front of a home and trash bins that have been left out more than 24 hours, the city’s Environmental Programs Coordinator Lisa Jensema said.
Mayor Al Pinheiro told Jensema and Couchee there were some ways that trash collection in Gilroy could be improved.
Pinheiro said he wanted to see South Valley Disposal & Recycling work with businesses that aren’t separating their trash correctly. The mayor also said the company’s trash collectors must do a better job of putting back emptied trash containers next to the curb.
“The empty bins are being put back all over the place,” Pinheiro said. “Let’s see if they can be put back in the place where they came from.”
