CLEARWATER — Last year, a flurry of angry phone calls prompted Clearwater to cancel a pilot program to reduce trash collection from twice a week to once a week in a couple of neighborhoods.
Now the issue is back. Clearwater leaders are strongly considering switching to once-a-week garbage collection citywide. They know they would take some heat for it, too — especially because residents' trash pickup bills wouldn't go down.
"It's easy for you to say it's good for the system," Mayor George Cretekos told a consultant who recommended the change. "We've got to justify why it's not only good for the system, but it's also good for the customer. The customer is expecting his rates to go down, not to go up."
No final decision has been made. But a majority of City Council members have agreed to have staffers bring a formal proposal to them in the near future. That will probably happen in December or January.
Florida cities such as Safety Harbor, Lakeland, Ocala, Sarasota and Key West have switched to once-a-week trash pickup. Dunedin will do so Jan. 5. Clearwater would be the largest city in the Tampa Bay area to make the switch.
Why do it? Because it would save the city $400,000 a year and encourage more recycling, officials said.
Clearwater went to single-stream recycling in 2013, with large blue recycling barrels and a longer list of recyclable items, such as cardboard, glass and more types of plastic. The amount of material being recycled in the city has since jumped from 160 to 440 tons a month.
With less frequent garbage pickup, "I've really got to consider what I'm putting in that black barrel now because they're only coming once a week," said Earl Gloster, the city's solid waste director. "It makes people think twice about what's going to go in that black barrel versus what's going to go in the blue barrel."
So why not charge less if the garbage trucks come around less often?
"We'd probably still be picking up the same amount of garbage," at least initially, Gloster told the council. "I know that's a tough bullet to bite, but that's the reality of it."
Also, Clearwater has to pay for a major trash-related expense that's coming up.
Officials say it's time to replace the city's aging garbage transfer station, tucked away in the woods just north of Bright House Field. Garbage trucks haul trash there, where tractor-trailers pick it up and haul it to the county's waste-to-energy plant.
The station was built in 1970, had a 20-year life expectancy and has been operating for 44 years. Replacing it will cost an estimated $20 million.
That's why City Council members reluctantly voted last week for an annual 3.75 percent rate increase for trash and recycling collection from 2016 through 2019.
Over the long term, charging residents more for trash pickup now will be less expensive than borrowing more of the money needed to build a new transfer station, said Mike Burton, of St. Augustine consultant Burton & Associates.
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Explore all your options"If you get ahead of these issues," he told the council, "it'll cost less to your constituents than if you did it later on."
Still, switching to once-a-week trash collection isn't a done deal.
Council members Hoyt Hamilton and Doreen Hock-DiPolito touted the green, environmentally friendly aspects of it. But council member Bill Jonson was leery, noting that a recent citizen survey found that many residents don't like the idea.
"So we asked for input, we got their input and we are proposing to go against their input," Jonson said. "I find it a little hard to make that decision."
The survey was actually split, with half of Clearwater residents opposed to once-a-week pickup and the other in support of it.
Contact Mike Brassfield at brassfield@tampabay.com or (727) 445-4151. Follow @MikeBrassfield.