Published: July 04, 2009 11:10 pm      

Solid waste review eyed for Frostburg

Collections of yard waste also to receive a look from city’s officials

FROSTBURG — Sometime this fall and with the help of Frostburg’s citizenry, Public Works Commissioner Susan Keller hopes to have a new road map for dealing with solid waste management in the Mountain City.

“With our financial and manpower resources down, it’s time we took a fresh look at a lot of issues, including garbage pickup and recycling,” Keller said Thursday via cell phone on her way home from the Maryland Municipal League meeting on the Eastern Shore.

“Two years ago we had to make a decision between buying a new garbage truck or privatizing pickup,” Keller said. “We went with the new truck and now it is time to take another look at the situation.”

Keller anticipates consideration of once-a-week garbage pickup. “We have to see if it is even feasible to get all of the garbage collected in a shorter time period,” she said. “Maybe we should look at pay-as-you-throw,” she added, referring to a system whereby the resident pays for the amount of garbage put out.

Keller will form a short-term study committee to look at solid waste issues. Anyone interested may contact City Administrator John Kirby at (301) 689-6000, Ext. 25 or via e-mail at jrkirby@allconet.org. The review will take place during August and September.

“In the student rental section of town, trash cans are often put out too early or too late. In either event, it makes garbage available to dogs and the wind, and the result is trash all over the street, usually including a lot of beer cans,” Keller said. “The committee needs to look at that problem.”

Keller said that at Frostburg State University’s orientation students are given refrigerator magnets that list the days of garbage pickup. “Maybe there is more we can do,” she added.

“A lot of Frostburg State students come from cities where receptacles are provided for in-home recycling. When they get here, they wonder if Frostburg even recycles.”

City curbside collections of newspapers for recycling are no longer cost-effective because fewer papers are being put out and could be eliminated.

Also to be reviewed is the city’s seasonal collections of yard waste. The time and cost of trucking the materials to Mexico Farms, where the county maintains a dump site for such debris, creates problems, according to Keller.



Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.