Piles of trash line Holly Drive as residents put out their items for a spring cleanup collection in 2008. The city is bringing back a redesigned cleanup program for residents. Press file photo
The original cleanup program, which was discontinued two years ago, had residents on one side of Tracy Boulevard discard items in the spring and the other half discard them in the fall. The resurrected program will feature a once-a-year free curbside trash removal for each household.
According to Jennifer Carigilo of the Tracy Public Works Department, residents served by Tracy Disposal can call a week in advance to have the garbage company pick up their furniture, appliances and other trash from in front of their homes.
Carigilo said a one-residence-at-a-time approach should ease the illegal dumping and scavenger issues that seemed to plague the old cleanup events.
“The program was originally put in to help alleviate the illegal dumping,” Carigilo said.
But as residents put out piles for pickup under the old system, other people would dump trash into existing piles, or scatter them at abandoned homes.
Scavengers would often tear apart the piles and bags, leaving a mess hard for the cleanup crews to manage, Carigilo said.
One of the biggest issues was curbside dumping of hazardous materials, ranging from tires and computer monitors to chemicals including paint and cleaners.
“Scheduling the disposals we can monitor and control what is being placed — it’s not one whole side of town at once,” she said.
Tightening budgets also help put a crimp on the cleanup collection. The original program cost the city’s solid waste enterprise fund $139,397 in 2009, according to Carigilo.
Demand remained high for the events, however, prompting the updated collection strategy.
“We still wanted to offer the residents a way to dispose of items safely for the community and the city,” Carigilo said.
There are, however, a few exceptions as to what can be thrown away, and how much:
• No more than 10 32-gallon containers of rubbish will be collected from each household.
• All rubbish must be in 32-gallon cans, plastic bags, boxes or bundles.
• Bundles can’t be longer than four feet, and no container can be heavier than 50 pounds.
• Only two large items of furniture — such as two sofas, two mattresses, or a combination thereof — can be placed curbside.
• Appliances and electronic waste will be accepted if Tracy Disposal is notified when scheduling the cleanup.
Tracy disposal will not accept any of the following as part of the cleanup:
• Car parts.
• Tires of any kind.
• Construction material, including fencing, sheetrock, piping and construction scraps.
• Hazardous waste, including paints, motor oil, batteries, pesticides, pool chemicals, household chemicals and sharps.
• Landscaping material including dirt, rock, concrete, asphalt, tile sand and stucco.
To help reduce the amount of electronic waste, the city hosts quarterly collections at the Boyd Service Center, 520 Tracy Blvd.
The next such collection is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 14
Residents can dispose of unwanted electronic items, including cathode ray tube monitors. Any one with more than 20 items must call 234-7994 to schedule a bulk collection.
The first two electronic waste collections brought in 22,380 pounds of cathode ray tube devices and 16,534 pounds of other electronics.
The city also has disposal vouchers for appliances throughout the year, which allow residents to dispose two large appliances free of charge at the Material Recovery Facility at 30703 S. MacArthur Drive. The vouchers are available online at www.recycleinsidethetriangle.com
• Contact Photo Editor Glenn Moore at gmoore@tracypress.com.
At a glance
• Call Tracy Disposal at 835-0601 a week in advance to schedule a pickup.
• According to Jennifer Carigilo of public works, pickups can be scheduled for any day, not just a normal trash day.
• Each household gets one pickup a year.
At some point and due to whatever cause, those tires catch fire. Toxic fumes sicken at least one person. Who are they going to sue? In todays world, someone for sure. You? Probably. They will also sue everybody else who layed their paws on those tires.
If they catch fire at the storage/disposal area you more than likely will not be found liable. However, whoever assumed responsibility by accepting your used tires will definitely come under the radar of the injured party's attorney.
Did you consider that maybe whoever the insurance company is which insures the disposal company or city - many government entities self insure, has certian ineligible operations which it does not allow? FYI,this is common practice.
Hmmm, seems there's much more involved here than meets the eye at first glance.
You want to talk about bad? Try toxic smoke for starters. Look up a little event which happened in Tracy back in 98. I didn't live here at the time but I remember it from driving through the area at the time on numerous occasions over the course of at least two months.
Also, with a quick click and the right search input you will find a number of references to the potential hazards of tire disposal.
That said some of the scavengers are a bit odd. One of my friends had put out a crock pot with a missing lid and some scraggly looking dude showed up at his door holding it, asking where the lid was. He was apparently pretty persistent in asking if perhaps it was lying around the house somewhere, if maybe he could look around for it, etc.. Wierd crap.
This is a funny statement seeing as the collection crews don't carry anything to clean up any mess. My house is situated in such a way that any trash floating around seems to get caught up in my front yard. Every week after they collect the trash, my yard looks abandoned. I have filled a 33 gallon garbage bag with the stuff they drop. Calling them does no good either. They argue with you and claim that the trash was there before they arrived and are therefore, not responsible. I have had to pick up an entire bag of smashed beer bottles, that was "there before they arrived", before I could back out of my driveway. I am happy to see this service return but please, Tracy Delta Disposal, dont try to tell me that you actually care about the mess you leave behind. Because, hey, it's not your problem.
The only thing i dont get is the reatriction on car tires. How in the heck is a car tire hazardous? I swung in one endlessly as a kid, have handled them dozens of times when rotating or changing them, and let my kids climb on the tire pile at del osso. Nobody was ever hamed.
I do think it is the environmental hazard the tires present that they are talking about.