By Colin Killian, Public Communications Director
Did you know that each of College Station’s garbage collection trucks, manned by a single operator, services about 1,400 homes daily?
In this week’s episode of “What’s Up, College Station?” Grace Hallowell and Solid Waste Division Manager Caroline Ask discuss move-out season for college students, including recycling and properly disposing of bulk items. They also preview the spring Household Hazardous Waste Collection Event from 7 a.m.-2 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, at the University Services Building east of Veterans Park and Athletic Complex.
The “What’s Up, College Station?” podcast is available weekly via Podbean, iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon/Audible. Please subscribe, rate, and recommend!
If you have a suggestion for a future topic or interview, email me at ckillian@cstx.gov.
TRANSCRIPT
Grace Hallowell:
What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined by Caroline Ask, our solid waste division manager. It’s almost Easter. The spring has flown by, and it is the start of the move-out season for our college kids here, which affects you guys greatly with the amount of trash that is put out. So we are here to talk about some tips today to kind of make things easier on you as a resident, as well as on us as a city.
Caroline Ask:
We are about to move into our move-in and move-out season. I know the students just started wrapping up on getting their rings, which is awesome. And then, of course, we’ll have the Maroon and White Game coming up this weekend, too. So all the excitement moves over to solid waste for three to four months. If you are in a single-family home and you’re renting a single-family home, of course, you have your three collections. You have your garbage cart, bulk and brush, and recycling day.
The students get excited to move out to get their deposit back, but many use the recycling bin as more of a trash container. So please, try not to do that. There is actually a contamination fee, and so what happens on the enforcement side is either us or our recycling vendor, Brazos Valley Recycling, will tag the container if we see too much trash, and we’ll pass by.
Usually, we like to have voluntary compliance first. That’s what that tag notification system is for — voluntary compliance. We are notifying you and trying to educate you to fix the issue, so we can come back on the following recycling day and service it for recycling. That’s the point; we want to ensure those items are recycled. So the first tip is please don’t use it as a garbage container. We can happily pick up extra collections for your garbage cart. If that’s something that’s needed, we’ll happily help you out on that end.
Now, bulk and brush are usually the big ones for move-in and move-out. Just make sure that you’re being a good neighbor. Usually, we request that your bulk items and brushy items be separated. Your bulk items will be collected with one set of vehicles if they’re less than 50 pounds. Then we have the giant vehicle with a big claw that everyone likes for anything above 50 pounds. We just ask that you place those piles away from stationary objects. We see a lot of piles being placed too close to parallel parked cars, mailboxes, telecom lines, and things like that. So they need to be out from any overhead obstructions and away from stationary items so we can actually get the truck in to pick up what’s needed.
Make sure you’re placing your items out the night before or before 8 a.m. on your collection day. We get a lot of calls about post-time collections, if I put my stuff out around 10:30 or 11. Well, the truck has already gone through by then, so just make sure you’re watching that timeframe. As for garbage carts, we’re also seeing a lot of what’s called snowconing. People will have the cart lids closed because the cart is full, and then they’ll put trash bags on top of the cart. Then, we can’t service it. The bags will fall, explode all over the roadway, and then we get calls to come back and clean up everything. So just make sure that you’re following those specific tips. That really helps our services and collection teams, and we can get to everyone efficiently. And then you don’t have to call us back.
Grace Hallowell:
A lot of people might not know this, but the reason that you shouldn’t overflow your carts or pile stuff on top is that the trucks are fully automated. There’s not a person tossing your trash into the truck.
Caroline Ask:
That’s a great point. There’s only one person in each residential automated vehicle. That’s why it has that yellow gripper arm on the side so that we can efficiently get through the collections, and that’s how systems were set up to increase efficiency. There is no person on the back of the truck or anything. The operator can’t get out of the vehicle every stop because you have extra bags. The bags have to be in an actual container so the gripper arm can pick it up. As a general statistic, each of our automated operators has to collect or service about 1,400 homes per day, and we run about five routes per day. It’s a lot going on all the time. That’s why we focus really heavily on efficiency and making sure that everyone’s following those guidelines.
Grace Hallowell:
In addition to the move-out stuff, you might come across this as you’re packing up, the household hazardous waste collection event is coming up soon.
Caroline Ask:
In my opinion, it’s one of the best community events of the season. It’s hosted by the Twin Oaks Landfill at the University Services Building. The entrance is off Harvey Road, and there’s an exit off University. You’ll only be able to enter from the Harvey Road side. We will have some illuminated signs so everyone knows specifically where to go. It starts at 7 a.m. and it’ll last till about 2 p.m. What’s really great is that you don’t even have to get out of your car. There will be City of College Station, City of Bryan and BVSWMA folks from the Twin Oaks Landfill working the event. You literally drive through, and if you want to roll your window down and tell them where your boxes of chemicals are or anything like that, pop open your trunk, they will take them out for you, and you can go on your way, which is great.
Grace Hallowell:
Nice, quick, easy. What are some of the items that are considered household hazardous waste?
Caroline Ask:
Some of the items considered household hazardous waste that we see a lot are paints, thinners, and petroleum products — old gasoline, old oil, oil filters, things like that. Your typical household chemicals. Things like Drano or some type of bleach are things you don’t want to mix because you could accidentally cause a reaction. Those are the things we’re hoping you will still have in their original leak-proof container. Anything that you’re not wanting — herbicides, pesticides, computers — all of that can go to HHW. And just to reiterate, it is free for all of our residents. Mind you, this is not for commercial businesses, and it’s just for residents of the Brazos Valley.
Grace Hallowell:
What are some items that you cannot bring to this event?
Caroline Ask:
You cannot bring medical waste. There are other options on our webpage and Twin Oaks’ webpage for medical waste for, say, pharmacies. No ammunition, no 55-gallon drums, no typical household garbage. There is a full list on Twin Oaks’ webpage. Please utilize it. They also have an entrance and exit map. It’s a great tool and we’re really happy that they’re putting this on for our community.
Grace Hallowell:
It is a great event. There’s also some options if you’re moving out and you would like to donate items that are gently used; you don’t necessarily want to throw them away.
Caroline Ask:
They’re also listed on our webpage, and I believe we have a blog post about that as well. If there are any reusable items, we’ll list out potential organizations that will accept those. Please look at that as well. It’s great.
Grace Hallowell:
As we move into summertime, another big thing that we see that you guys deal with is disposing of pool chemicals.
Caroline Ask:
We did a WTAW interview a couple weeks ago about this. Pool chemicals will also be accepted in HHW, but usually there’s leftover residue or chlorine or whatever else that people need with pool season is coming up. This weekend, it was like 93 degrees. So it’s coming faster than it normally has but ideally, everyone is doing maintenance on their pools, shocking their pools, getting ready for the kids, and all the things to have fun. But we’re seeing a lot of pool chemicals and those same types of chemicals being placed out for bulk and brush collection, whether they’re hidden in piles or in bags, things like that. But in a collection vehicle everything is compacted so we can service more people. That’s the whole point of efficiency.
But when you compact those chemicals, they react with the other materials in the back of the truck. It can cause chemical fires, things like that. We actually experienced that this past weekend where we had a reaction in the back of one of our rear loaders. We had to eject the load, pick it up with a different vehicle, and take it to the landfill as a hot load. So please don’t put them out for bulk and brush. It causes a safety issue for our operators, our vehicles, and emergency services. HHW is a great time to get rid of them safely.
Grace Hallowell:
And again, do not put them in your regular garbage. We covered a lot today. So where can people find more information?
Caroline Ask:
If you’re looking for solid waste, come to our webpage, cstx.gov/recycle. It has everything related to solid waste and recycling on there. If you’re looking for specific information about the HHW event hosted by BVSWMA, you can go to the Twin Oaks Landfill webpage. We also have links to their stuff. Again, that includes the entrance and exit map, a full list of accepted items, and those prohibited from being disposed of at that event. So we’ve got lots of options for you. And you can always call us at the Public Works mainline. The phone number is 979-764-3690.
Grace Hallowell:
All right, thank you so much for joining me today.
Caroline Ask:
Thanks for having me.
About the Blogger
Colin Killian has been with the City of College Station since 2010 after serving 23 years as the associate media relations director for the Texas A&M Athletics Department. He has also worked as a reporter and editor for the Corpus Christi Caller-Times and Lewisville News. A native of Hobbs, N.M., Killian graduated from Texas Tech with a bachelor’s degree in journalism/political science.
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