Trash Collection in Tega Cay (Welcome, Lake Wylie: job, house, company)

[MilesBFree]

It seems like Signature Waste is doing a decent job overall, and my comment/complaint may be more directed at the way the contract was written with the city than against them.

Is anyone else buried under recycling? Since they pick up the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month, our recycling bin is overflowing. I often have to jam cardboard along the sides of the bin to extend the capacity upwards in order to fit all of the recycling in.

We have containers inside too, where we collect recycling and then I dump those in the Signature Waste containers once a week. On at least a few occasions, I have had to leave those full indoors since I just could not fit everything into the official bin. I was able to empty the indoors ones once they picked up, but that then meant that we started the next period with bins almost half full.

Part of the problem is that they will not pick up cardboard that is left at curbside unless it is in the bin. So I cut it up and put it in the bin, but that takes up a lot of space.

Does anyone else have similar problems?

[MilesBFree]

The problem is that with the 1st and 3rd Friday schedule, there are some periods that end up being 3 weeks.

A 3 week period occurred in November / December: November 15th was the last day in November, and it was not picked up again until December 6. We did not get caught up on our inside bins in the middle of the month, and then Christmas hit with all of the boxes from presents and cans and bottles from holiday cooking and merrymaking.

Then all of the recycling from New Years.

I finally got caught up on the second pickup in February (after being behind since November), and then we hit the problem again - the end of February / early March period was another 3 week period, as the last recycling pickup in February was on the 15th, and the next one was March 7th, which was 3 weeks between pickups.

I managed to cram everything in by using the cardboard box extender trick, but I was not happy...

[lovethecarolinas]

Miles - first of all...Good for you on the recycling!! We too are having similar issues..along with others within Tega Cay. This company is pretty new for the city so I personally think we are going through a learning curve. When they first started they were only going to pick up recycles once a month but that was quickly changed to 2 days a month. It now appears that we could use more days...so I have a couple of suggestions for you in the mean time (steps that I have already taken). First...go to the city of Tega Cay website and you will see that we have a new "Citizen Request" feature. Here you can voice any issues, complaints, etc.....and it will then be routed to the appropriate person to handle. I have provided the link: Tega Cay Home Page The second suggestion is contacting Signature Waste directly...Mr. Swinford has asked for comment and suggestions and his phone number is below.

Here is a portion of a recent article in the Charlotte Observer in regard to the amount of recycling that we are putting out there.

Recycling

Joe Swinford of Signature Waste told me that each month he is pleasantly surprised by how much Tega Cay is recycling.

His company took over the recycling services in November and they pick up an average of 30 to 33 tons of recycling each of the two days per month that we are recycling. That means residents are recycling between 60 and 66 tons each month.

Some residents could recycle more and some are not recycling at all. I hope each of you will consider whether you could recycle more in the future.

Joe said that the recyclables are sorted at a site off Westinghouse Boulevard in Charlotte. He welcomes any comments or questions: 704-714-9400 or SIGNATURE WASTE <> <> <> WELCOME.

Hope that helps some.

[lovethecarolinas]

According to the articles about 75% of Tega Cay recycles!!

There was an article recently in the Herald, and I have provided a link of the one in the Lake Wylie Pilot:

Tega Cay excels at recycling - Lake Wylie Pilot

[PA Family]

Glad we aren't the only ones who have overflowing recycling! I thought it was just us We make trips to the recycling center on 160 by Baxter to help alleviate some of the overflow. It is a great center and very convenient, that said we don't go quite enough and usually still have overflow... But it is a great alternative when the bin is full.

[SatTerra]

We're in the same boat, and the current schedule is not frequent enough. We find ourselves taking excess recyclables to the 160 location as well. At other times we simply have to place recyclable materials into regular trash, which we do not like doing. A once weekly pick-up seems to be the only viable solution to this particular problem.