Our Approach to Solving These Problems
To solve these problems we plan to end hand-loading our residents’ trash, provide a standard solid waste container to each our customers, and automate our solid waste and recycling collections to the maximum extent practicable.
For information on the issues that we are facing as a community and the factors that need to be considered as we plan and implement changes to our household waste collection systems,
U.S. EPA Publication EPA530-R-99-038 Getting More for Less, Improving Collection Efficiency:
As we work to solve the problems with our current system, we have established the following goals for our new system:
- Improve worker safety by eliminating their exposure to hazards to the maximum extent practicable.
- Do so without creating undue burdens on city residents.
- Increase worker and equipment productivity.
- Provide one adequately-sized solid waste cart to each residence and business served, at no cost to the customer.
- Provide city residents adequate bulky waste and yard waste collection and disposal options.
- Prevents increased incidents of illegal dumping.
- Minimize the amount of rain and snow entering the waste stream.
- Reduces landfill disposal costs.
- Prevents the formation of ice in refuse containers.
- Prevent animal intrusions into refuse containers, and control odor and disease vectors.
- Improve neighborhood aesthetics through containment of debris and potentially airborne litter.
To start this process, we currently have funding in our 2016 budget to purchase over 8,000 95-gallon solid waste carts and four side-loading solid waste/recycling trucks to convert about 1/3 of our solid waste and recycling collections to fully automated systems, starting in the spring of 2017. The initial rollout is currently being developed and will be limited to streets without alleys, and where most of the houses have driveways resulting in low on-street parking demand. We will develop plans and budgets to automate the rest of the city in phases with a target of completing the entire process in the fall of 2018. These changes will require us to create a separate system to handle bulky wastes (quantities of waste or items that can’t fit into a 95-gallon cart), and will provide an opportunity to improve our yard waste disposal system.
These changes have the potential to eliminate almost all of the hazards our workers are currently exposed to. Additionally, less workers will be required to operate these systems, allowing us to move manpower back into the Street Maintenance Division where we have lost 12 positions since 2002 due to operating cost increases that could only be offset by other budget reductions. The resources we save through automation will be used to restore pavement maintenance operations that have been cut-back over the last 14 years.
We are working to fully automate the 22,000 of our solid waste and recycling collection customers who currently have curbside pickup. Fully automated collection systems have been in development for over 35 years and use side-loading collection vehicles with hydraulically controlled arms to pick up and dump solid waste or recycling carts. An operator controls the collection arm from inside the vehicle. From his driving station, the operator lifts, dumps and then returns the cart to the curb.
For additional information on fully automated collection and how the City of Green Bay requires their residents to place cart for pickup, follow the following links:
Automated Waste Collection Presentation for Website
Green Bay Curbside Carts Placement
The Advantages of Carts
Below are two YouTube videos of fully automated solid waste collections in operation :
Because the majority of city’s alleys are 15 feet or less in width, and have numerous overhead and side obstructions, it’s not feasible to fully-automate collections in our alleys. We are exploring two options to convert our existing 4600 alley pick-ups, or about 18% of our customers, to a safer collection system.
The safest, and by far the most efficient option being considered, is to stop collecting solid waste and recycling in alleys and move these collections to the curb-line where they can be fully-automated along with the rest of the city.
The other option we are considering is to continue operating in the alleys by issuing 95-gallon solid waste carts to all of our alley customers and “semi-automating” alley solid waste collections, just like we currently pickup recycling. To implement a semi-automated solid waste collection system we will be required to retrofit some of our existing rear-loading trucks with hydraulically actuated “tippers”. These trucks are operated by a single person who exits the vehicle at each stop and wheels the city-provided cart to the rear of the vehicle where it is connected to the tipper. Then the tipper mechanically dumps the contents of the cart into the hopper of the truck. The driver returns the cart to the side of the alley, gets back into the truck cab and drives to the next stop where the process is repeated.
Semi-automated collections require twice as many trucks to maintain the same level of worker productivity as our current manual collection system because it takes extra time to go through the mechanical dumping cycle and for the operator to get out and back into the truck at each stop. Although this system eliminates almost all lifting injuries, contact with sharp objects and exposure to most disease vectors, workers are still subject to repetitive motion injuries, slips and falls and conflicts with vehicles operating in the alleys.
For a comparison of fully-automating versus semi-automating our existing alley collections, follow the following link:
Automation of Existing Alley Collections