The Solid Waste Advocacy Group (SWAG) presented a petition to the Columbia City Clerk on Friday.
The group hopes the petition will prevent the addition of roll-carts to the city’s trash collection system.
“People are frustrated that their voices don’t seem to be heard,” said SWAG spokesperson Mary Sapp.
The group has been collecting signatures for the last two months at the Columbia Farmers’ Market, the ARC, the post office and the Columbia Public Library. Many signatures were collected by Columbia residents who wanted to volunteer.
“We’ve had a number of volunteers come forward who wanted to circulate petitions in their neighborhoods and among their friends,” said Sapp.
The petition requires 2,567 signatures from registered Columbia voters. If not enough votes are counted, SWAG will have two weeks to make up the difference.
But, Sapp said the group has collected 4,084 signatures.
“We know the City Clerk will review them all and throw some of them out either because they are either illegible or not where they vote from, so we wanted to have extras,” she said.
Sapp said she thinks getting this amount of signatures in two weeks seems like a record.
City Clerk Sheela Amin has 30 days to review the petition.
“We’re going to review the signatures to see if their registered voters of the City of Columbia and to see if they have that magic number,” Amin said.
If the right amount of signatures are counted, the City Council will either vote in approval of the petition or have the public vote on the issue in 2016.
The city’s purchase of an automated trucks would only require a single driver that would create faster and less expensive trash collection.
The topic of roll-carts is a reoccurring discussion for the city as the Solid Waste Utility is suffering with employee safety, workers’ compensation costs and high employee turnover.
“We’re very dismayed to see this issue come up again because they thought in 2012 the issue had been put to rest,” Sapp said.
Sapp said SWAG finds the $6 million cost of implementing an automatic truck and the roll-carts unnecessary.
“There’s no need to change it,” Sapp said. “We believe there are things that could be improved about the current system.”
If the City Council votes in favor of the petition, the council will ban the purchase of roll-carts and automated trucks.
