Trash begins to pile up for some Limestone County residents - WHNT News 19

Trash begins to pile up for some Limestone County residents | WHNT.com

LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) — Some people who live in Limestone County say garbage is piling up in their neighborhoods.

According to the county commission, Limestone County has never had a large debris pickup and residents have always been responsible for taking large trash to the dump. But people say their trash has continued to mount because of items that cannot fit in the can.

Codilyn Copeland lives with her grandparents and husband, and she says the cans aren’t big enough for some waste including boxes

“They said we’d have to put it in bags and put it in our trash cans, which we already accumulate a lot of trash. So, it gets hard. We can barely make a dent out of what we can put in trash bags,” Copeland said.

Despite following instructions from the solid waste department, neighbors like Katy Gibson now say they have trash backed up from Thanksgiving.

“I called Danny Barksdale, who is our local county commissioner to either get a second can -which none are available – or to put a single box because it was most likely Christmas trash every week in our can until it was gone, which is great, but we had a family Christmas. We have boxes and bags and everything else, like I’m gonna be putting out Christmas trash until September,” Gibson said.

Now, the Limestone County Commission Chairman Collin Daly says garbage cans are on the way.

“Yes, there is a waitlist right now because, what happened was, we had to get into this garbage service relatively fast, any time you have to produce 25 to 30,000 garbage cans. We’ve got them ordered, they are supposed to be delivered the first part of the year. So we’re hoping by January we’ll be out delivering second cans for people who requested a second can,” Chairman Daly said.

Until then paper, boxes, aluminum cans, and steel bins along with electronics are accepted free of charge Monday through Thursday at the solid waste department in Athens.

You might also remember that Limestone County changed the way it collects its trash earlier in 2023. Each household gets one bin, and the county will issue a second bin at an additional cost.

Limestone County solid waste has been in operation since April.