By: Joseph L. Kuchie

Business Administrator
Glenn Skarzynski

SOUTH AMBOY – South Amboy is experimenting with a new bulk garbage pickup plan that will allow residents to throw away all their bulk garbage at once rather than break it up over time.

Currently when a resident wants to throw away bulk items from their homes they must call the Department of Public Works to get stickers for each bulk item but are limited to how many items they can throw out per week. The city’s new plan would allow residents to throw away an unlimited amount of garbage at once on a designated date based on their trash pick-up schedule.

“We’re trying an experiment this month with the bulk pickup,” Business Administrator Glenn Skarzynski said. “We normally do once a week believe it or not, but it’s limited to three or four items. What we’re trying for September is hitting each neighborhood based on your trash pickup day and it’s pretty much everything goes. If you get it to the curb and it’s not hazardous, we’ll take it.”

September 5th was the first day of the trial run, with the “Monday zone” getting their chance to participate. Each Wednesday a new zone will be able to participate until the end of the month, and then the city will decide what the next steps are.

Skarzynski noted that the numbers are consistent with the current pick up plan with less labor involved. The city has launched a poll on the South Amboy Facebook page to see which option residents would prefer moving forward.

“We normally do 24 tons a month doing that weekly thing, we did the Monday people today and we did 21 tons, so the number is pretty consistent,” Skarzynski said. “I’ve got a poll up actually on Facebook to see what people would prefer, the weekly with the limits or quarterly with no limits and right now quarterly is leading two to one but we’re early, they’ve got a week to vote.”

“That seems to be the direction we’re looking to go in because not only is it a little bit easier to manage for us, it also will free up the DPW crew three additional days a week that we can use for something else,” he added.

This new bulk pick-up plan comes just weeks after residents filed multiple complaints with the city regarding rat sightings in South Amboy. Skarzynski noted that the problem has improved since the city began their investigation and started cracking down on certain unkept properties.

“We had our recent rodent problem which seems to have abated,” he said. “We haven’t had a complaint in almost two weeks since we went in to the areas that were affected and engaged in some heavy enforcement and we’re getting good compliance there.”

All council members were in attendance for the business meeting. South Amboy’s next city council meeting will be held on September 19th at 7:00 p.m.