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Woodfin said that the purchase will help mitigate some costs incurred by the city’s “outdated” and “overly kind” garbage pick-up program, which has flagged in recent months due to staff shortages.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.”
Here’s what happens when private equity buys homes in your neighborhood
What makes rents go down and neighborhood diversity go up? Corporate landlords. But they also make it harder to own for yourself.
Here they are: The best student podcasts in America
For the 2025 NPR Student Podcast Challenge, we've listened to nearly 2,000 entries from around the U.S., and narrowed them down to 11 middle school and 10 high school finalists.
Musicians keep leaving Spotify in protest of CEO’s defense investments
In the last few months, bands including Hotline TNT and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have pulled music from Spotify in a new wave of artist-led protests against the platform.
Trump’s Medicaid cuts will hurt children’s hospitals
The GOP said its overhaul of Medicaid was aimed at reducing fraud and getting more adult beneficiaries to work. Among the likely side effects: fewer services and doctors for treating sick children.
A new Nation’s Report Card shows drops in science, math and reading scores
It's the first Nation's Report Card since the Trump administration began making cuts to the U.S. Education Department. The scores reflect the state of student achievement in early 2024.
Nepal lifts social media ban following protests where police killed 19 people
Nepal's government lifted its ban on social media platforms Tuesday a day after police killed opened fire on mass street protests against the ban, killing 19 people.
