Council Approves Streamlined Trash Pickup

Separate pickup days will soon be a thing of the past for Vienna residents.

The Vienna Town Council approved this week a new solid waste program that will allow Department of Public Works crews to collect trash, recycling and special pickups on the same day each week.

Public Works staff member Jonathan Wooden said at a meeting this winter that current pickup rules — which dictate crews pick up trash and recycling from each residence in the Town of Vienna once a week, on separate days and force residents to request pickups for other items — is confusing to residents. It's also inefficient, he said, because sanitation crews deal only with trash and recycling but not with special pickups, which are handled by street maintenance teams.

Those teams must stop normal work, such as laying asphalt, to do those pickups, which delays other town projects.

The plan, discussed by the council in a series of public meetings this winter, divides the town into five "zones," one for each day of the week. For maps of the zones, click on the images above.

One each zone's pickup day, two refuse packer trucks will collect household trash, along with lumber, fencing, non-metal furniture, rugs and any other items accepted by the Fairfax County I-66 Transfer Station.

Two additional refuse packer trucks will collect single-stream recycling, including large materials that can be recycled like appliance boxes, according to the plan, and anything else accepted by the Waste Management Recycling Station in Merrifield.

The knuckle-boom and tandem truck will collect all loose brush and limbs and yard waste and transport it to the Fairfax County I-66 Transfer Station, and the Sanitation Inspector will collect any metal left at the curb, which typically amounts to just 12 tons annually, according to town documents.

The plan eliminates the two free special pickups currently offered for each resident annually; DPW hopes residents will put out smaller piles more frequently in a single-stream process.

"I think the biggest concern is going to be how many times we have to borrow members from another crew to get this done," Wooden said. "That’s what we’re going to really keep track of."

Councilwoman Laurie Cole requested the department keep track of that and other data so the town can assess how the program is working six months or a year down the road.

Wooden said he's heard encouragement from residents he's talked to about the plan.

"I've only heard people say good things about it," he said.

What exactly will be accepted at the curb : a second round of proposed changes sets forward a number of regulations for how trash is to be set out and how containers are removed after collection, along with new definitions for single-stream recycling, yard waste, household trash and contractor-generated materials, which would be banned under the new rules.

The council will discuss those changes at a public hearing at 8 p.m. April 16.