The City of Birmingham will be giving its residents 96-gallon trash cans for street garbage pickup.
The Birmingham City Council voted Tuesday to approve a contract for 100,000 uniform trash cans equipped with anti-theft chips that allow cans to be tracked if they are stolen. The contract with Tote, LLC is for up to $6.556 million.
“This is a very necessary step in keeping our city clean,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said. “This is a very progressive step forward.”
Currently, city workers pick up trash placed on the roadside regardless of what type of container it’s placed in. Workers had to get off garbage trucks and lift items that put them at risk of injury, Woodfin said. “That’s outdated,” he said.
The new trash cans will be provided free to residents on the city’s 26 routes on a rolling basis, beginning with the first 25,000 that should arrive in six to eight weeks, Woodfin said. The cans will be tagged and labeled for the city and then distributed to residents by 2023, he said.
The city is also in the process of getting new trucks equipped with lifts designed to pick up the trash cans, he said.
The transition has led to false rumors that the city is privatizing its garbage pickup, Woodfin said.
“We’re not privatizing garbage,” he said. “It’s a lie. It’s not true. It’s false. Our employees will remain our employees.”
