COLUMBIA, S.C. — The City of Columbia Public Works announced a new option for getting rid of nature's litter - specifically leaves.
“Every year what we go through what’s called leaf season basically all the leaves are on the ground and we get behind in collections just because there’s so much more material out,” Samantha Yager, superintendent of waste management, said.
Instead of waiting for trash collection to go around and grab these extra bags, residents can take them to a drop-off site themselves. The purpose of the program is to get rid of extra trash on Columbia neighborhood streets and help with keeping up with loads of trash each week.
“This year, we’re adding a new optional service to our curbside service and we have new roll-off containers that we are locating at five of our parks locations,” Yager said.
The following are drop-off locations for the week of Nov. 11:
- Hyatt Park, 950 Jackson Ave.
- Mays Park, 4100 Trenholm Rd.
- Woodland Park, 6500 Olde Knight Pkwy.
- Rosewood Park, 901 S. Holly St.
- Hampton Park, 1117 Brandon Ave.
Those locations will change each week in the program's trial period.
One Columbia resident said he usually doesn't bag his leaves after raking.
“Usually, we have woods in the back and I usually take of them u[p in there and let it compost up there,” Scott Mickey said.
With this added service he said this will reduce the amount of work he would do without bagging the leaves.
“I’m probably raking the same leaves several times and that would be a big help,” Mickey said.
While it keeps neighborhoods clean, the new pick-up option is selective about what can go in the bins each week.
“We are taking bagged leaves only in these containers," Yager said.
She said this doesn't include bulk items such as branches. Columbia Public Works added the program to help eliminate unnecessary waste in the city.