Soon the City of Jefferson will be switching to automated garbage pickup for residential properties.

City officials are going to purchase a mechanical arm garbage truck to replace the current truck used for residential garbage pickup. The new truck will allow one person to operate the mechanical arm to automatically pick up a specialized container and dump it into the truck instead of picking it up manually, which is what is happening currently. City Administrator Mike Palmer explains one of the main reasons for the switch.

“It has already been mentioned at some (city) council meetings just how the savings in itself on workers comp and accidents that happen. It’s the number one cause of our insurance.”

The City Council has already approved preliminary costs for the new truck as well as the specialized containers. The total cost for everything is $530,000, which is included in the overall $2.54 million bond that are expected to be sold at Tuesday night’s council meeting.   

A tentative timeline to make the switch to the automated pickups is September 2nd.