Auburn Recycling Bins Overflowing After City Cuts Curbside Pickup

Changes will be coming to recycling drop-off sites in Auburn, according to city leaders after local complaints.

Auburn residents have been complaining about the Auburn Public Works recycling site, stating that the bins are constantly overflowing.

“If you’re doing it [dropping off recycling] like maybe Thursday or Friday, you know late in the week, you’ve got to stuff it in,” Auburn resident Clive Madden said.

The bins seem to be much worse to deal with on the weekends when the city’s contractor, Casella, closes its facilities and can’t empty the containers. The bins are available to the public 24/7.

Earlier this year, the city ditched curb side pickup in favor of a drop-off only model. This saves the city about $250,000 a year, but residents are saying that those savings aren’t worth the issues they face now.

“It is not fair to us, we pay taxes,” Auburn resident Constance Browning said.

The proposed fix currently is to move the bins behind a fenced-in area of public works and shorten the hours they can be used to help limit the overflow.

“Hopefully on the weekends we don’t have these huge spikes and floods and the inability to respond quickly,” Auburn Assistant City Manager Brian Wood said. “We started with two containers; we moved up to three containers. We started with dumping twice a week, we’re now dumping three times a week.”

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