Birmingham Modernizing Garbage Pickup
Birmingham will spend just over $6.5 million to give each household in Birmingham a new, 96-gallon garbage receptacle that Mayor Randall Woodfin said will modernize the way the city picks up garbage.
The 100,000 standardized containers will be manufactured by the North Carolina-based company Toter LLC and will include GPS tracking technology to make sure they remain at their assigned households.

Woodfin said that the purchase will help mitigate some costs incurred by the city’s “outdated” and “overly kind” garbage pick-up program, which has flagged in recent months due to staff shortages.
“We don’t necessarily have teeth in (our current garbage) ordinance. So anything that’s out there, we pick up,” Woodfin said. “So our citizens can put anything out there (which means) trash is always on our streets … . People who do illegal dumping or littering can blend in.”
The standardized bins, he said, will be “a very necessary step in keeping our city clean and being more efficient in how we pick up garbage.”
The bins will be distributed to Birmingham households incrementally, with the first 25,000 ready to deploy “in six to eight weeks,” Woodfin said. Households that need more than one bin will have to pay for another, he added, though the city believes the container size “should work for all households.”
The bins will be compatible with the city’s new mechanized garbage trucks, which are expected to be deployed before the year’s end. Some of the city’s current fleet of garbage trucks also will be retrofitted to pick up the cans.
Woodfin dismissed “crazy talk” that the city’s garbage services will be privatized, although that was an option his administration publicly considered in 2020. “We’re not privatizing garbage,” he said at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. “Get that out of your head. It’s a lie … . Our employees will remain our employees.”
This nation has the fastest rising rate of cancer cases — and deaths — in the world
According to a new report, cancer rates are skyrocketing in this tiny country. What's causing this to happen? And what steps can be taken to turn the tide?
Iceland reports the presence of mosquitoes for the first time, as climate warms
The discovery of three Culiseta annulata mosquitoes was confirmed this week by the Natural Science Institute of Iceland, which said the mosquitoes likely arrived by freight.
Alabama board seeks to ban books that ‘positively’ depict trans themes from library youth sections
The Alabama Public Library Service Board of Directors is considering a proposed rule change that expands the existing requirement for youth sections to be free of “material deemed inappropriate for children.” The new proposal said that includes any material that “positively depicts transgender procedures, gender ideology, or the concept of more than two biological genders.”
After months of the same songs on the Hot 100, ‘Billboard’ tweaks its rules
Billboard has revised its system of removing songs from the Hot 100 singles chart once they've gotten too old to qualify as contemporary hits.
Greetings from an Indian Railways coach, with spectacular views from Mumbai to Goa
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.
Alabama inmate asks to meet with governor ahead of execution
Anthony Boyd is scheduled to be executed Thursday evening by nitrogen gas at the William C. Holman Correctional Facility. A jury convicted Boyd of capital murder for the 1993 burning death of Gregory Huguley in Talladega County.