New garbage collection schedule announced

Beginning this week, Wednesday is no longer 'garbage day' for everyone in Penn Hills.

Under a new three-year contract with Greenridge Waste Services of Scottdale, curbside collections will be done on different days of the week in different sections of town. The Greenridge contract, at a rate of about $1.3 million a year, represents a savings of about $250,000 a year over the previous contract.

For the past six years, the municipality had relied on Waste Management Inc. of North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County, which conducted a one-day 'sweep' on Wednesdays of the nearly 17,500 households in Penn Hills.

Because of its massive fleet of trash packers and recycling trucks, WMI was basically the only company with the means to bid on the one-day collection system.

This year, municipal officials opted to bid the contract out both ways, and Greenridge beat WMI's first-year bid by about $250,000.

'Everything seems to be on line with the people from Greenridge,' Municipal Manager John Brennan said. 'As for the switch to an alternating daily pickup in different neighborhoods, that's basically the old system. That's the way it was always done prior to Waste Management.'

With the customers in Penn Hills, Greenridge will serve about 72,000 homes in western Pennsylvania. About 40,000 of those are in the South Hills.

'We're ready to roll,' said Ron Catalina, Greenridge's operations manager. 'We've been in Penn Hills for weeks already, setting up our schedule.'

As with any transition with garbage and recycling pickup, the important thing is for people to be aware of their new collection day.

'There's going to be some confusion because people didn't see their street on the schedule,' Catalina said.

Trucks will begin their rounds at 6 a.m. and probably continue until early afternoon.

As for the recycling, each daily section of town will be divided in half and put on an alternating pickup scheduled every other week.

Items to be picked up by the recycling trucks will still include glass, tin, aluminum, plastic, newsprint and magazines.

Penn Hills residents are not charged a separate fee for garbage collection.

Municipal Solicitor August Damian said the decision to drop Waste Management was not a reflection on the corporation's legal problems after a state crackdown this summer forced WMI trucks off the road for alleged safety violations.

This led to delays of up to several days for some Penn Hills residents, all of whom had expected to have their garbage removed every Wednesday.

'From a logistical standpoint, we'll be able to handle any problems like that in a much swifter fashion, since we'll have garbage trucks in the municipality every day,' Greenridge General Manager Mike Yelinek said.

Greenridge officials said they would also be willing to pick up commercial trash receptacles in the municipality.

Tom Jewell can be reached at tjewell@tribweb.com or (412) 380-8516.