An Athens-Clarke County Commission committee is considering whether to recommend changes to trash collection in the area outside the old Athens city limits as an upcoming action item for the full commission.聽Those changes could see some residents in the county鈥檚 General Service District, formerly unincorporated Clarke County, lose their currently preferred private trash hauler. Additionally, the proposed changes could mean the end of self-hauling by residents who take their own household trash to the Athens-Clarke County landfill.
But before any changes are made, the Legislative Review Committee (LRC) will survey residents of the General Service District. The committee is set to review a proposed survey at its Aug. 8 meeting and could present a new garbage collection proposal for the General Service District to the full commission as soon as November, under a timeline suggested last month by Commissioner Carol Myers, who chairs the LRC.
Garbage collection was the lone service left unchanged in the 1991 consolidation of the Athens and Clarke County governments, approved by a referendum in both jurisdictions in November 1990. At that time, the old city handled its own garbage collection, while more than a dozen private trash haulers worked routes across the unincorporated county. Additionally, residents of the unincorporated area could haul their household garbage to the landfill.