BRADENTON -- By year’s end, the sight of sanitation workers riding on the back of garbage trucks will be a thing of the past.
The last remaining areas of the city will be converted to a new method, using a truck that has a mechanical arm that lifts a special garbage container and dumps the contents into the truck.
“This new system is much more efficient than using a truck with three guys hanging on the back,” said city public works director Claude Tankersley.
Bradenton began implementing the automated pickup system in 2006, and out of a total of 14,500 households served, only 1,000 are still under the old system, according to Tankersley.
The new system has reduced the number of trucks and employees by 30 percent, while keeping solid waste charges the same, Tankersley said.
Workers riding on the back of trucks are still manually collecting trash for residents of Cortez Villas, located on the 4100 block of 36th Avenue West.
Linda Pizzi, 64, a resident of the apartment complex, said she is concerned about how manageable the new system will be for her neighborhood, especially for residents who are in their 80s and 90s.
“From what we’ve been told, you have to wheel these things to the main street,” said Pizzi.
Green plastic containers with a 65-gallons capacity will be issued to the condominium residents, Tankersley said. Single-family homes are issued 95-gallons containers. All containers have wheels and a handle to help residents maneuver the trash to its collection point.
“It’s ridiculous,” Pizzi said. “Older residents sometimes can’t even walk to the mailbox, let alone push garbage cans.”
Tankersley said he understood the concerns and fears of Cortez Villas residents, given that similar objections were once raised by other households. Ever since residents were taught how to properly tilt and push the containers, complaints have vanished, said Tankersley.
“Cans are built to be very easy to push by anyone,” he said. “They are balanced in such a way that the weight is placed on the wheels, so it takes very little effort to push them.”
Tankersley said that average trash cans do not have wheels and have a 32-gallon capacity, which can be much heavier to carry to the collection site.
Cortez Villas residents were also concerned about how far they had to push the containers for collection and where they would be stored, Pizzi said.
Pizzi, who said she is 5 feet 2 inches tall, said the container reaches up to her chest, would be an eye-sore in front of the property and difficult to handle if placed in the back of the house and dragged through the grass.
“What do we do with these things; put them in our living room?” Pizzi said.
Tankersley said it was the up to the condominium associations to decide how far people had to take the containers and where they would be placed. In some cases, residents could share the containers and alternate the handling responsibility, he said.
Public works officials are scheduled to meet with Cortez Villas residents at 10:30 a.m. Thursday to answer questions and concerns about the new system.
Tankersley said the department would do its best to “make sure the transition is as easy and pleasant for them as possible.”
Miriam Valverde, Herald reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7024.
