BURBANK : Automated Trash Program Accelerates

Burbank is preparing to expand its automated trash collection system to include two-thirds of the city in a second phase of the program beginning in February.

Today the City Council will consider spending $1.3 million to buy 32,000 special containers of the type already used by one-third of city residents for automated trash pickup. The automated pickup program started in April and originally was to be phased in over the next three years. But city officials have been able to step up the schedule and now plan to have all of Burbank on the new system by September, 1994.

Under the automated pickup system, Burbank residents put out their refuse in three containers: black for household garbage, blue for recyclables, and green for lawn trimmings and other yard waste. The containers are picked up by the hydraulic arms of the city’s new automated trash trucks.

City officials have encountered at least one problem with the new system: The containers left at curbside sometimes have made it difficult for street sweepers to get by. So the city is changing schedules for street sweeping and trash collection so that they do not occur on the same day. New signs posting the changes are being installed and are to be finished by the end of the year.

An automated trash truck can pick up the refuse from 700 homes in one day, contrasted with the 200 homes a conventional truck can serve in a day.