Remember a couple of months ago when most people you know were like, "hey, cool, we're finally getting curbside recycling in St. Pete, took long enough" but a few people were basically calling Mayor Rick Kriseman a fascist because the bins are big and blue and the trucks used for pickup were too big for the city's alleys?
Well, today, Kriseman announced the city will roll out a new fleet of trucks that will pick up recyclables in alleyways of neighborhoods where garbage trucks pick trash up in alleys.
"In order to maximize future participation, and to make this program as convenient as possible for those who get their solid waste picked up in an alley, we will get the recyclables in the alleys, beginning in January," Kriseman said in a video released Monday.
The city will be using smaller, rear-loading trucks starting in 2016, and will use the next few months to perform maintenance in alleys, such as trimming overgrowth so the trucks will better fit.
"We will do the work necessary to accommodate for the twice-monthly placement of the 95-gallon containers," he said. "Our sanitation department will use the next few months to acquire four additional trucks."
Earlier this summer, as the program was being rolled out, residents in historic areas like Kenwood and Old Northeast started to grumble about the bins that were getting dropped off in front of their homes.
They're big, they said, they don't match with the surrounding aesthetic and it's inconvenient to roll them out to their front curbs. After all, garbage in those areas is picked up in the alleys; doesn't it seem silly to do recycling in the front? The city coulda, I dunno, asked residents how they want to recycle before wheeling out this massive program.
Despite good intentions, Kriseman had a political mess on his hands. People were literally calling for his ouster over it.
In the time since the program started to roll out, there have been some changes at City Hall. Namely, controversial public works director Mike Connors, credited with the program's (what some would call botched) rollout, abruptly retired a few weeks back.
The modification to the program seems as though it would remedy the problems some residents have with the program, except, you know, for those who enjoy holding grudges over unfortunate but small conflicts after they get resolved.
Despite the outrage in some pockets, Kriseman said, the program is actually going pretty well so far.
"This program is less than 100 days old and it's already clear that St. Petersburg likes to recycle," he said. "I appreciate that so many residents are doing their part to keep waste out of our incinerators and landfills."
This article appears in Sep 17-23, 2015.