If you still haven't received your new 95-gallon wheeled garbage cart from the City of Knoxville, look for two things to come your way soon:
(1) A letter from Solid Waste Manager Rachel Butzler, verifying that your address is scheduled for a cart delivery, and
(2) Of course, the cart itself.
The letters are in the mail. If you don't receive a letter by Thursday or Friday, call 311 to make sure your address is included in the City's database of addresses to assure delivery of a cart. If your address is missing from the database, please provide your information to the 311 customer service agent, and it will be reported to the Office of Solid Waste.
A small number of carts are being delivered to a handful of streets that haven't been serviced yet, and others are being delivered to hard-to-reach locations - streets too narrow for a large truck to maneuver during the initial distribution, for example.
Also, crews will be “troubleshooting” for several more weeks – revisiting individual households where a delivery was missed during the initial distribution. Deliveries to single households may have been missed due to confusion where multiple houses share a driveway, for example, or instances when residences are hidden from view behind other homes. Or homes that have been newly constructed may not yet be in the City's database of deliverable addresses.
Again, if you're awaiting a cart delivery and you don't receive a letter from Butzler this week, please call 311.
"Whatever the reason for a missed delivery, we're working seven days a week to make sure the last carts are delivered," Butzler said. "We really appreciate everyone's patience. We will get a cart to every household that's eligible. In the meantime, we ask that anyone who hasn't received a new cart continue to place their old trash cans out in the usual location for weekly pickup.
"Despite some missed deliveries, the transition into the new trash collection process that started Jan. 1 has gone very smoothly. But we know homeowners who haven't gotten their new carts yet want them, and the Office of Solid Waste won't rest until all 60,000 City households have one of new carts."
For more information about common delivery issues – and possible solutions – please read this Cart Smart blog post: http://bit.ly/2hZEatp. The new standardized trash carts are a key component in modernizing the City’s household garbage collection – upgrades that will save City taxpayers $2 million each year.
Questions? Visit www.knoxvilletn.gov/garbage.
Bottom line: Call us if you don't yet have your cart and you don't receive a letter from the Office of Solid Waste by late this week.
"If you receive a letter from the City this week, then a cart will be on its way to your household," Butzler said. "If you don't receive a letter by Thursday or Friday, please call 311. And if you still don't have a cart by Feb. 1, we ask that you also call 311."
