Up-to-date as of 3:30 p.m., Oct. 25: Wednesday's Summit County Council meeting was cancelled for lack of a quorum.
Last winter was so snowy, trash was left piling up on curbs. Some dubbed it “trashpocalypse.”
Republic Services, the company Summit County contracts for waste pickup, often couldn’t reach snowed-in bins.
Wednesday, the company will debut a new winter pickup plan to avoid the delays that frustrated many customers last year.
“It was a pretty rough winter. I think we have a lot of questions for them,” Summit County Manager Shayne Scott said. “I think they've got a pretty decent plan moving forward and will be presenting that to the council.”
If weather prevents Republic Services from picking up trash on the designated day, Summit County asks residents to take in their bins by 7 p.m. to allow roads to be plowed. The bins should be out by 7 a.m. the following day.
Garbage trucks will then try to collect again. If roads are still impassable, residents won’t get trash pickup again until the next designated collection day. That’s one week later for trash, two weeks for recycling.
When the snow inevitably piles up, Republic Services plans to notify locals about trash pickup via a text alert service. Residents can learn how to sign up online at summitcounty.org/republicupdates.
Summit County will host a dashboard that will serve as an educational hub related to trash and recycling service.
It will have instructions on how to sign up for notifications from Republic Services, who to contact if you experience a miss in service, policy for residents' cans if/when weather delays their service and in times of significant delays we will host a dashboard with information related to each individual service route.
Republic was expected to highlight improvements to its fleet at the council meeting Wednesday, but the meeting was cancelled for lack of a quorum.
It’s spent millions on five new trucks, with a sixth arriving in December. It plans to draw on its Salt Lake, Pleasant Grove and Ogden divisions for assistance during storms.
In high-demand areas, and only in the case of extreme delays, Republic may set up overflow containers as a stopgap.
