City Announces Overflow Trash Bag, Free Bulky Pickup Program

Gone are the days in Cranston when all it took to get rid of virtually anything, no matter how big or small, was to dump it on the curb and make a phone call to the city for a free bulky waste pickup.

A new, more stringent city trash and recycling collection program brought new bins and automated Waste Management trucks to the city along with increased recycling rates ever since it was enacted last year.

Along with it, it brought complaints that the new system was too strict and too severe a departure from the old system, which accommodated residents no matter how many different bins they put out on the curb and even if they left bags on the ground.

After Christmas, a birthday and during spring cleaning, the new bins are too small to fit everything, forcing many residents to set up temporary storage hubs in their garages to stuff as much overflow as they can into the bin each week in an effort to clear the trash backlog. Others resorted to chopping up old furniture and awkward objects like large plastic children’s toys and gradually filtering pieces into the bin each week to get around the lack of a free bulky pickup program.

Here comes some relief: the city has implemented a new overflow trash program.

In a letter mailed to all Cranston households recently, the Department of Public Works said that the new program is designed to ease some pressure on residents. Residents now can buy specially colored and marked 30-gallon plastic bags to supplement their bins and if placed on the ground next to the normal bin, Waste Management will detect its presence and arrange for a second pickup later in the day to remove it.

Only the special bags will be removed and they can be bought at city locations for CVS, Stop & Shop, Phred’s Drug and Durfee True Value Hardware.

The bags cost $10 for a sleeve of 5 bags.

For bulky waste pickup, the city is going to offer free pickups twice a year, one in March and the other in September.

Each residence will be entitled to one pickup in each period and Waste Management must be called at 800-972-4545 to schedule it in advance.

Pickups will be limited to three items per event and DOES NOT include mattresses, construction debris, TVs, electronics, white goods (washers, dryers, stoves) or any household garbage that otherwise could fit in the city-supplied 65-gallon bin.

The City Council began efforts to come up with the program last year in response to increasing complaints about the new trash program.

So why won’t they pick up mattresses?

The city’s Public Works Director Ken Mason told the City Council last year that a whopping 16,000 mattresses were disposed of in 2013 at a cost of nearly $440,000. And that was a typical year.