Coming soon to a curbside near you — it’s the twice annual bulky item pickup! Included in the price of the city’s Pay-As-You-Throw waste management program, twice-annual collection of bulky items is offered to every PAYT customer, every six months, give or take a few weeks. Since it’s impossible to predict the number of items which will be placed out by each customer, the city cannot make an exact schedule. Instead, it creates a calendar approximating the collection dates of bulky items for different areas of town. Notice of these gala events is provided primarily through doorknob flyers and announced in each zone about a week in advance.
Bulky items eligible for pick-up include: doors, furniture, appliances, passenger car tires removed from rims, lawn mowers, railroad ties, pallets, rolled fencing, and lumber that is nail-free and tightly bound. For more info, call 499-2111.
Restricted items include hazardous materials, auto chassis and bodies, motorcycles, trailers, boats, tires still on wheels, and construction debris including plywood, bricks, rocks, cinder blocks, stone, concrete, mortar, sand, Sheetrock, insulation, flooring, shingles, siding, steel roofing, sheet glass, and mirrors.
Hazardous chemicals can be dropped off at the City of Austin’s Household Hazardous Waste Collection Facility. The facility accepts household quantities of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, paints and thinners, gasoline, antifreeze, motor oil, oil filters and other automotive products, household and car batteries, cleaners, aerosol cans, pool chemicals, photographic chemicals, and fluorescent bulbs. The facility cannot accept radioactive materials, biologically active materials, ammunition, explosive materials, and some types of pressurized gas cylinders. The facility is open Wednesdays, noon-7pm, at 4411 Meinardus Drive. The services it provides are free to all customers of the City of Austin’s Solid Waste Services. For more specific information about home chemicals and proper disposal call 416-8998. –B.N.
This article appears in April 23 • 1999 and April 23 • 1999 (Cover).