The City of Amarillo is considering getting rid of the 22,000 dumpsters that dot the city and replacing them with individual 95-gallon plastic carts that would be rolled to the curb by Amarillo residents. The carts would then be emptied by trucks with robotic grabbers.
As The Amarillo Globe-News reports, city leadership modeled the plan on the cart-based trash service in Dallas. “If you look at any city that you would consider premier in solid waste collection, that does it very well, they are using a cart service to do it,” Amarillo Public Works director Raymond Lee told the Globe-News.
The first part of the changeover will take three to five years and cost $2 million to implement. That phase will involve getting rid of about 1500 dumpsters that are visible on sidewalks and streets.