Talking trash: Free pick up of bulky trash is on a schedule

Published 6:15 pm Friday, January 1, 2016

If you live in Washington and got a new microwave oven or other similar appliance for Christmas, don’t put the discarded one on the curbside for pickup right away. If you do, it likely will stay there for several weeks.

Why? Because the city won’t pick up bulky trash for free until the week of Feb. 9-12, the first of four collection periods for bulky trash in 2016. The other weeks are May 10-13, Aug. 9-12 and Nov. 8-11.

Some city residents who place such items on those curbsides expect those discarded items to be picked up weekly as part of the normal solid waste pick-up schedule for their neighborhoods. They’re mistaken. Residents who believe the city is ignoring that bulky trash are mistaken, too.

City trash crews collect bulky trash four times every year, at no cost to the city’s residents and businesses that have their trash collected by the city. Those collections take place the second full week of February, May, August and November. Bulky trash — items that don’t fit in the green garbage carts — is picked up on the same schedule as regular solid waste collections. If one’s garbage is picked up Wednesdays, then one’s bulky trash will be picked up on the Wednesday of the second full week of the applicable month.

Place bulky trash items on the side of the street during each free week only. There is a limit of one truckload per resident during each free week of bulky trash collection. Bulky trash may be picked up during other times for a cost of $75 per trip. Such collections may be arranged by calling 252-975-9302. City residents also may carry bulky trash to a Beaufort County solid-waste convenience center at any time at no charge.

Some items will not be picked up, according to city officials. Items such as tires, hazardous materials, appliances that contain (or did contain) Freon, televisions, computers and computer accessories will not be picked up. Televisions and computers are accepted at the Beaufort County convenience center (roll-off site) on Magnolia School Road.

“Generally, what we do … is if someone gets a new television for Christmas and they put their old one out — or a microwave — we leave them a door-hanger, initially, and let them know that’s an unacceptable item and they can take it to one of the roll-off sites in the county. Out on Cherry Run Road there’s one. Out on Magnolia School Road there’s one,” said Frankie Buck, the city’s public works director. “We’ll tell them that initially and also let them know if they hang on to it we will pick it up during bulky-trash week in February.”

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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