South Bayside Waste Management Authority/Rethink Waste

Trying to set up an appointment for door to door household hazardous waste pick up but the lady who answered the phone didn’t want to help me! She told me to drop off the waste at the local center because I didn’t have enough load. This service is already paid for together with the garbage and recycle pick up quarterly. This is just not right. Disappointing service!

Free Compost to residents! How can you not love that? We have gone here twice so far and picked up free compost. The first time we drove our car up, popped open the back, and the guy placed two big bags of compost in the back for us. 2 minutes total and we were on our way.
The second time there was more of a line and we had to grab a shovel and scoop compost into the big paper bag for ourselves, but that was fine too. The compost is beautiful if you are into these kinds of things: deep black, earthy, and warm to the touch. My garden loves the stuff. Unfortunately my car still smells a week later but hey, not a bad price to pay for Free Compost!

After we carefully line up the bins on the curbside the night before our pickup, wouldn’t you think they could end up in approximately the same spot? I angrily phoned the Recology folks to complain about not being able to get in my driveway when I get home from work — busy street, no place else to park — because empty bins are left across the driveway, in the street, in all available parking spots. I was told my address would be «marked» as having requested not to block the drive, and that all three routes would be notified (why would it need special notification? shouldn’t that be normal practice??). It was better for one week. Today the wayward bins are back, scattered throughout all the driveways and curbside parking spaces on my block. And for this service we are now paying higher rates! Bring back Allied Waste!

I like the concept… if only they weren’t barreling down our street 3 – 4 times a week waking up our 3 year old at 5am…
Why is one side of the street a Wednesday pick up and the culdesac across the street on Thursday, and our side on Friday… can you not do a neighborhood at a time? These trucks are big and loud and obnoxious. At the very least, you have to move your start time to at least 6:30am or later.
It was annoying with Allied as well, but at least we knew it wasn’t going to be more than once a week. Also, if anyone calls for an extra pick up, or missed pick up, there is one more day added to our street.
Lovely.
Also — our compost is never going to fill that big thing up — can we have that size garbage can instead? I can only fit 3 bags of garbage in our can, and I don’t think we should have to pay extra for a normal sized garbage can. I’m all for recycling, but the sizes don’t make a lot of sense to me.

I just love this joint powers authority and all they are doing to make the peninsula a better place to live. I am excited that recycling will soon be comingled and that we will be recycling food scraps and food soiled products with our yard waste. I am also glad that commercial recycling is going to become mandatory; it is about time. They have always kept our rates low and I am glad that they have monitored BFI and Allied Waste’s activity to the tea. I couldn’t be happier that they chose Recology to take over collection and South Bay Recycling to take over transfer station and recyclery operations. These are good companies as a lot of the drivers were saying that everything has been okay at Allied, nothing like when it was BFI. Recology is 100% employee owned and operated, making for a happier experience. Keep up the good work guys.