The big news about the new yard waste and leaf collection ordinance passed by the Greensboro City Council last week was the end of loose leaf collection.
And that made the ordinance ideal for cramming in some other unpopular new regulations. It’s the old misdirection – while everyone is looking at the magician’s right hand waving the handkerchief, the left hand is busy picking pockets.
The city staff does not like garbage and recycling bins left on the street any longer than absolutely necessary. Last year the City Council agreed to make it a finable offense to leave your bins on the street longer than 48 hours.
The new ordinance reduces that time limit to 12 hours after the bins are emptied. So, if your garbage and recycling bins are emptied at 7 a.m., by law they have to be removed from the street by 7 p.m. If you happen to be working late that day, too bad, you are subject to a fine.
Also, this is really weird regulation and really only affects the unfortunate people who have Monday collection: It is now illegal to put your bins on the street before dusk on Sunday.
If your collection day is Tuesday, it is not illegal to put your bins on the street on Monday afternoon. If your collection day is Thursday, it’s not illegal to put your bins on the street on Wednesday afternoon, and if your collection day is Friday, it is not illegal to put your bins on the street on Thursday afternoon.
However, it is illegal for anyone in the city to have any bins on the street on Saturday or before dusk on Sunday.
The ordinance states, “(1) All containers or carriers placed on any street to be emptied shall, within twelve (12) hours after the contents thereof are emptied and collected, be removed from such street to the rear of the premises by the owner or occupant of the premises from which such container came to a storage place provided for that purpose, which storage place shall be nearer to the house or building located on the premises than to any street abutting such premises or to any lot line.
(2) No solid waste containers or any form of movable carriers shall be placed, kept or left on any street for any purpose whatsoever on Saturday or before dusk on Sunday.
(3) Any solid waste container or any form of movable carrier placed or found in violation of this section will be deemed a public health hazard and reported to the county environmental health division and be subject to the fine outlined in this chapter.”
The new ordinance also eliminates the use of any containers for yard waste other than the 95 gallon gray bin the city will provide or biodegradable paper bags.
The ordinance states, “No personal containers, other than biodegradable bags may be used.”
Also, according to the ordinance as amended by the City Council, from now until Feb. 28, 2024, it is illegal to put yard waste in a biodegradable paper bag, and beginning on March 1, 2024, it is illegal to put yard waste in any bag other than biodegradable paper bag.
This is the most hungry money city I have ever heard of. They want your money and do nothing to earn it, rather than make it easier on the taxpayers. TAKE YOUR TRASH AND DUMP IT AT CITY HALL. Plus, when will we know the results of the poll questions the city sent out?
My question…what will the schedule be for pickup for the leaf bin and/or bags and what happens to the bags of heavy rain before picked up….come apart? Cost of bags and delivered to home by City? Thank you.
Barney Fife. Rules is rules. Petty. Small minded. Are there really a lot of complaints about bins “on the street” too long? I’ll bet a lot fewer than those still wanting loose leaf collection or something workable.
Just how much more stupid BullSh$$ can this female council come up with
Remember this next election for any of the council members, but would want the only sane one to remain, that’s Zack. They appear to want to be accepted as kings and queens and we are the serfs there to bow down to their whims.
So when the biodegradable leaf bags get rained on and fall apart prior to collection, how does that work?
Guess those wet intact plastic bags don’t work as well as the wet paper bags that fall apart.
Also, what will happen to all the equipment capital currently used for collection? Let’s hope an acquaintance from the council doesn’t buy it for pennies on the dollar.
I agree. The current yard waste trucks are loaded by hand. When they provide the new bins, they will need new trucks with the ‘claw’ to dump the cans. So that means MORE capital expenditures to purchase new trucks??
AND those bins are very expensive too. How many households are there? I’d guess 90,000
Don’t ya just love Government? I’m betting there was more paper wasted whilst writing this bill than it would take to create the new yard waste bags ( which are okay to purchase now, but don’t use them before Next March! ) YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP
Greensboro just keeps making rules/laws to run people out. For most residents, it probably does not affect you on trash day. However, with aging parents, when the caregiver leaves at 5pm on Sunday, when are we to place the cans on the street? Before 7 am Monday morning is not an option as care doesn’t begin until typically 10 am, when said parents are waking up. (Trash is usually picked up by 9 am) Thanks for the hospitality Greensboro – feeling more welcome than never!
Su T.
How about old people that has to have help putting trash out for there mother that is to old that can not put there own trash out by there selfs . How does that help senior citizens to get there trash out.
Because you only see your kids once a week or not to often. How is this going to work for old people or you saying you don’t give a hoot weather they get it out or not.
This is only one of the really serious concerns about stupid regulations that aren’t based on reality. The rules make no sense in real life.
What’s the deal with “dusk” on Sunday? Do they miss Blue Laws or feel the 10% of the people still attending Sunday night church services will be offended seeing trash cans on the streets? Why should cans out that afternoon be different than any other?
The small size of these cans for homeowners with larger trees is going to create a problem about where to “store” leaves until they are all disposed of. (This happens at my cousin’s and sister’s places in CA, where they have to build piles of yard waste when they do Fall and Spring yardwork because their can doesn’t hold enough and it takes months to get rid of the waste.) The people who say to mulch them into their grass with a mulching mower are assuming people can afford to buy a new mower to satisfy Greensboro when they’re paying increased taxes for a service that’s being reduced. They know the service will eventually be ended.
Disabled people will also have issues with this method of leaf removal. The thing is the citizens weren’t asked or consulted. The politicians just decided and told them it was done. People should be able to choose what they pay taxes for and then deduct from their tax bill the things they don’t want to pay for because they’re not getting the benefit of that service. Then they would have more say in the running of the services they were provided.
So who’s going to write the tickets our over worked snd under paid police?? I love when politicians pass laws or ordinances that can’t be upheld. The people on the trash truck’s don’t have time to write tickets and who do you appeal to if you believe you are innocent??? This will get very interesting.
There is a whole department in the city called Code Enforcement. They handle things like this and issue civil fines. They are usually pretty nice about it, but do hand out some stuff penalties sometimes.
Code Enforcement is understaffed. I submitted a complaint about a commercial lot being overgrown months ago, and checked on it the other day and the auto-reply said there was no record of it, yet they sent me a conformation of the complaint in an email. See how well the city handles the regular things? As the old saying goes, if you can’t be responsible to do minor things, how will you ever succeed in doing the big things. That’s where the city is now. They want to do do big things which will enhance the city and growth, but they fail to. . . .as they say. . . .take out the trash.
LOl! If you voted for these mindless microbes- enjoy the BS you voted for! Hope you believe your tax dollars are being used wisely.
Okay wise city leaders, everything goes into the green container henceforth. Brown container will remain empty. Stupid games win stupid prizes!
I am beginning to think it is about time to demand gender equality on the City Council. Perhaps Council positions should to be proportional to the gender breakdown in the community. The transgender population should have the same proportion of Council seats as they have in the voting population. Ditto males and females. This would treat gender as race in terms of equal opportunity and fairness. Since at present persons identifying as females clearly outweigh their actual proportion of the voting population, some either need to resign, or be barred from running at the next election so that candidates identifying as males can be substituted as replacements. Then, perhaps, some of our favorite services, like leaf collection, can be reinstated, and other unpopular services (there are many possible choices) be eliminated. Obviously, since only one Council Member has participated in the immensely popular discussion on Nextdoor about leaf collection, the current members are either indifferent, misinformed or ignorant about the degree of public disapproval with their proposed “new” program…
Our city council are puppets of Charlotte and Raleigh. Why do they feel the need to be like another city. I’m sure if the citizens of Greensboro wanted be like them, they would move there.
Wow. What country are we living in?
More”Statutes and Codes with the color of law.”
A Freeman does not need a permit slip to do what’s right and good! When will the tyranny stop?! Keep electing authoritarian statists and it’ll only get worse.
Checkpoint Charlie moves to Greensboro. “Papers, please…” Keep voting for socialists, keep blindly following their policies, keep undoing the very freedoms our ancestors fought for and died to protect. Create your spineless Utopia of feckless gobshites. It’s time to call out tyranny and act accordingly.
Are you sure it’s not Checkpoint Chicky?
John,
Come on man, this is a joke , right? I have to say, you really has us going for a while. Nobody would do something as stupid as that. You’d think they’re trying to increase their collections on fines, but that not it.
This IS a joke…………isn’t it?
I guess the city council is just a glorified Home Owners Association, huh?
So, if my container is emptied at 3:00pm on Tuesday, I don’t have to move it from the street until 3:00am Wednesday? 12 hours? Asking for a friend.
That’s what the new ordinance says.
and how will the Code Enforcement Department know exactly when MY can was dumped? Times the trucks come thru my department can differ from week to week. I have no idea how they would enforce this…
Does this council not realize that over 600 city employees work a 24hr shift and may not be able to uphold their own employers stupid mandate?
How many of these women on the council deal with their own leaves? One can, plus disintegrating single use bags? I’ll take a barf bag with that please.
Thank you for this clarification. I knew it was too good to be true. And as usual, it is. Misdirection is the perfect description of this. But I always thought the “7&7” rule was an ordinance anyway, Just not enforced. for those of us who work long shifts, we’re going to be in some serious trouble with these bins.
Question: Is the city going to pick up our small rolling carts, plastic storage tubs, and garbage cans we were using for yard waste since they will now be rubbage?
We used them to avoid using plastic bags. Don’t know if they will fit in the green yard cintainers and probably aren’t recyclable.
And should we cut all our bushes completely down like several neighbors have? These prickly bush limbs have a tendency to cut through plastic bags much less paper ones. That is why we started using the tubs. Don’t think they will fit in the gray barrel in just one week.
We did not keep the lids to the plastic tubs, because the city did not want anyone to have lids on them when they were put out.
Did they think this through the large waste this is going to cause?
Can you say “control freaks?” That’s what we have on the city council. Also since biodegradable bags may be used on March 1, 2024, but not on or before February 28, what happens if we use them on February 29? Next year IS a leap year.
Oh goodie! I want to see them explain in a lawsuit how it’s a public health hazard to put trash cans out more than 12 hours before trash pick up, but only on a Monday. Microbes do not grow Tuesday through Saturday, evidently in City Council’s mind. Go ahead, “fine” me. Let’s play.
I have 30 trees on my lot. A mature oak can produce 800,000 leaves a year. Do the math. Guess I’ll be hauling that 95 gallon container to the curb each week for 6 months. Or end up with a fleet of containers parked in my back yard to use once a year.
So will the city keep track of when each can is emptied, and start the 12 hr clock at that point? If that’s the case, your can may have to be off the street at 7pm or possibly after midnight. Seems like something that will take considerable effort and money to monitor.