Cotta is working with the tribe to look into the possibility of expanding the program for the whole community.īut Cotta and others are also exploring region-wide solutions. The local tribe, the Petersburg Indian Association, already has a small composting program. “Either converted to compost, or put into a recycling stream and reused as something else.” “It’s safe to say a really significant portion of what goes into the garbage can could be diverted in some fashion,” he said. But higher costs will eventually mean higher prices for customers and one of the easiest solutions is simply throwing away less.Ĭotta estimated that nearly half of baled trash could be composted or recycled. The increased cost of Petersburg’s new waste disposal contract won’t be passed on to residents this year. Chris Cotta, Director of Public Works in Petersburg, said shipping prices are the biggest sanitation challenge across the region. A lot of municipalities compress their trash into giant blocks called “bales” and barge it down to the Lower 48. Because it’s an archipelago, towns can’t just truck their garbage down the highway to a shared landfill. The borough just signed a trash disposal contract that’s 34% more expensive than the last one and now they’re hoping to find ways to lower costs for customers in the remote town with already sky-high living expenses.īut trash disposal in Southeast Alaska is expensive. That chicken is just a tiny portion of the millions of pounds of garbage that Petersburg residents get rid of each year. I was with Mikey and I was like ‘Oh my God, it’s a dead chicken!’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah it happens,’ and I’m like, ‘God, gross!’” “I opened it up, it was a dead chicken,” she said.
On a recent trip down bumpy Noseeum Street, she described one surprise.
#TRASH TRUCK PAY DRIVER#
Kelly Davis has been a trash truck driver in Petersburg for less than a year but she already has lots of stories about the things she sees in garbage cans. The borough hopes to recycle and compost more to bring down costs. Kelly Davis has been driving trash trucks in Petersburg for almost a year.
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