Bismarck trashing old garbage trucks for new plans - KX NEWS
Bismarck trashing old garbage trucks for new plans
BISMARCK, N.D. ( KXNET) — Wednesday may be Valentine’s Day, but it was also Garbage Day for some, but if one happens to take a closer look at the trucks helping to clean up in Bismarck, they may notice that they are starting to get old.
This begs the question: what can be done to help address garbage pickup in our area, both now and when these trucks finally reach their limits?
The multipack garbage trucks that Bismarck has are the last of their kind. These vehicles can load from the side and the back, which allows for extra garbage to be picked up.
The City of Bismarck has been spoiled by these trucks, as every other city in North Dakota will only pick up what is inside your bin.
Typically, garbage trucks last around 10,000 service hours. Currently, five out of the eight multipack garbage trucks that Bismarck has are now on their last legs.
Now that they can’t get any more multipack trucks, city leaders are figuring out solutions for the community until people can acclimate to the change.
“It’ll be hard to get extras,” explained Bismarck’s Solid Waste and Landfill Superintendent Toby Sheldon, “because these trucks are made for extras. They’re strictly automated. If we still took extras, we would have to run an additional truck with extra people behind it to pick the extras up — which wouldn’t be good for the citizens, and not cost-effective at all.”
Other options that city leaders are looking at would be to not pick up any extra garbage at all, and make people buy another bag or garbage bin. However, no decision has been made yet.
About $330,000 are also currently planned to go into a new set of garbage trucks, which the city expects to receive by next year.
Another trashy situation that the City of Bismarck is facing is at the landfill.
The city is now permanently capping the cell at the current landfill by filling it with clay and cement. A new cell has been constructed to the south of the old one, and is expected to last for quite some time.
“The next cell that we’re working on,” the city’s Director of Service Operations Steve Salwei explained, “we constructed in phases. We constructed the first phase about three years ago, and we’re going to construct the next phase this summer. We’ve got seven different phases planned overall, and it should take us 35 to 40 years down the road before that one would be filled up,”
Salwei also states that a good way to reduce your waste is by recycling and not just throwing your grass clippings on the sidewalk. Instead, special dumpsters are available in the summer to dispose of them.
Clippings disposed into these bins are composted and later remade into soil that will be sold back to the community.