The City of Jefferson is in the process of switching residential garbage pickup to automation.

The City Council has approved to purchase an automated, mechanical arm truck, which has a 12-foot arm reach, it can load 31-cubic yards, and has the capacity to hold 1,000-pounds of trash. Along with the new automated truck, the Council also approved buying a rear-loading truck and outfitting it with flippers that can be used as a back-up in case the automated truck breaks down. Even though these trucks require only one person to operate it from inside the cab, City Administrator Mike Palmer says it will virtually eliminate worker’s compensation claims from employees falling off the back of the truck or falling when getting out of it to load garbage. 

Palmer points out there will be no reduction in staff.

“They wanted to make sure that nobody was going to lose their job over this and nobody is. Even though it goes down to one person, arrangements have already been made to utilize the second person who would’ve been on the truck to work in other departments.”

The Council also approved buying 1,482 95-gallon garbage containers and 300 65-gallon containers. Palmer notes that they are encouraging property owners to choose the bigger sized containers.

“The comments from people who have actually used this system before, and they said that the 95(-gallon) seems so big because of the wheel size (on the containers), it’s a lot easier to move around. And the amount of trash, it’ll fill a 95(-gallon) pretty easy. Hate to undersize yourself (and) it seems like the 95(-gallon) is the way to go.”

The initial cost of the first container will be charged to the City. However, if a property owner wants another container or loses the first one, the property will be charged. New Way Ford and Scranton Manufacturing will make the equipment and Elliott Equipment Company will go to each property owner to select the size of container. Educational material will be given at that time. The total cost for everything was $515,181. Payment was included in the general obligation bond of $2.45 million.

As for the spring and fall cleanup weeks, the sanitation committee discussed just having it done two days per year at a central location. No final decision has been made on that yet. The tentative date to switch to automated residential pickup is September 2nd. To see a video of how the automated truck works, click the video below.