Time to take out the trash? Lexington County could require curbside pickup
Lexington County residents could soon be forced to replace a drive to the collection site with a simple roll to the curb, if the county moves forward with a comprehensive trash collection program.
The plan could begin rolling out in some unincorporated parts of the county early next year, if the county council adopts the proposal in its 2021-22 budget.
Dave Eger, the county’s solid waste director, said the change is needed because Lexington County’s 11 waste collection sites are being overwhelmed by a growing county’s need to dispose of all its garbage.
“With the county population increasing by 2% a year, increased use of the county waste collection system will also rise,” Eger told the council Feb. 23. “A long-term solution in solid waste collection is needed.”
If approved, residents in the Chapin-Irmo area — where the program would roll out first — would see a new collection fee added to their tax bill this year. Eger estimates the new collection fee would cost each household around $258.
Lexington County will slowly expand the program to its existing waste collection districts. Chapin and Irmo area residents would be the first to receive curbside trash pickup in 2022, followed by the Lexington and West Columbia areas in 2023. Collection would then expand to households in the Gaston, Pelion and Batesburg-Leesville areas in 2024.
Households in Chapin-Irmo that aren’t already signed up for trash pickups would receive their carts in December, when they also would find out what days they will see the trash truck coming down their street.
Eger said the county will negotiate rates with contractors to collect residents’ household waste, but existing contracts with the providers for the Chapin area and Cayce/Gaston mean the county will have to accept their rates for any expansion.
Currently, the county franchises household collection on a voluntary basis in different unincorporated service districts. Eger told council only about 37% of residents in those areas are signed up for household collection. That creates logistical challenges; instead of a trash truck slowly rolling down a street to collect each home’s trash in order, the truck driver might have to travel long distances between homes whose residents put out their trash, and remember which ones need to be collected.
Including cities and towns that offer such services, a little more than 50% of all Lexington County residents use curbside pickup, the director said.
Most other residents take their trash to a county collection site, but Eger warned that could become increasingly difficult. The daily number of vehicles visiting those sites has gone up 33% in the last five years, and the higher volume has added more than $1 million to the sites’ operating costs, from $2.19 million in 2016 to $3.48 million last year.
Councilman Darrell Hudson noted the traffic problems that can result from busy days at the county’s River Chase collection center off Interstate 20 and U.S. 378.
“I think the public will understand when I say it’s a total cluster,” said Hudson.
Eger said the county has looked into relocating or expanding the half-acre facility, “and frankly no one wants a similar facility in their backyard.”
If the collection sites stop taking household waste, Eger said they could cut back service to two days a week, saving $2.5 million. His department could save another $700,000 if the sites stopped taking yard waste and only collected recycling.
