UPDATED — Joe Knight demonstrated Tuesday that he can deliver a punchline.

County Commission President Jimmie Stephens told his fellow commissioners during Tuesday’s committee meeting that former Commissioner David Carrington called Sunday to say his garbage had not been collected.

“That was intentional,” Knight quipped as the room erupted in laughter.

But missed garbage pickup is no laughing matter for commissioners and others who are fielding countless complaint calls, not to mention the people making those calls.

Stephens asked County Manager Cal Markert if he could convey any positive news about efforts to address challenges to garbage being collected.

Markert said he and others are still looking for answers, acknowledging a recent meeting with representatives from Amwaste, the company with which the county contracted to collect garbage in unincorporated Jefferson County. The county doesn’t manage garbage collection, but by contracting with Amwaste, it negotiated a lower price for residents who use the company for their garbage collection.

Amwaste also serves cities such as Hoover, Mountain Brook, Homewood and Vestavia Hills, which formed the Cahaba Solid Waste Authority to contract for garbage service.

“They (Amwaste) rerouted pretty much all their customers — the county and the big consortium of cities,” Markert said. “They admitted to us that they had drastically underestimated the difficulty that was gonna create with all their truck drivers and the routes they were going on.”

Markert recounted that Amwaste acknowledged thousands of missed collections the first week of its schedule change. There was reported improvement the second week and still more the third week, he recounted.

“I gotta see the numbers for this week because I’m like you,” he said. “I’ve gotten more (complaint calls) this week from pretty much all over the county.”

Changes to routes came because the initial schedule had garbage being picked up Monday through Saturday. The company had trouble retaining drivers because they didn’t want to work Saturdays.

“They cut the Saturday off,” Markert said. “They feel like, long term, this’ll make things better.”

Commissioners have suggested that the county look at rebidding its contract for garbage pickup, and the county manager said that is being considered. Some have suggested that contingencies be included to penalize the contracted company for missed pickups.

“That’s definitely gonna drive the cost up for our customers,” Markert said. “We’re trying to figure out how to do that. We did suggest to Amwaste (that) they put in technology, mapping systems that help them identify when they have a miss immediately and help the truck drivers not get lost, not missing entire streets.”

The county manager admitted he doesn’t have a good answer.

“I don’t have anything other than we’re trying to do all we can do and hopefully we can rebid it and clean up some of it,” he said. “We’re gonna look at going into possibly six zones so we get some competition. We’re gonna look at taking off the requirement that they have to haul it to our landfill, which will make it cheaper.”

Markert talked to County Attorney Theo Lawson about the county possibly subsidizing the cost for citizens. That can only be done if use of the garbage pickup service is mandatory rather than voluntary.

“We’re still trying to cross off everything we possibly can to try to make it better,” he said. “Hopefully, we should have a solid recommendation.”

Litter Along Roads

On another matter, Knight noted an increase of litter along roads in the county. He made a motion to move $300,000 from the contingency fund to contract labor for litter cleanup. The commission is to consider that motion during its Thursday meeting.

“Our roads people can’t handle being out picking up litter all the time,” he said. “They need to be doing the roads.”

Knight proposed the county use the same people who perform litter collection for the state. He said the requested $300,000 should pay for litter cleanup through this fiscal year, and commissioners would consider a longer-term solution while drafting the 2024-2025 budget.

Editor’s Note: The proposal for money to be spent on litter cleanup passed the commission Thursday as part of a multi-pronged funding resolution.