With trash fees in San Antonio to increase, city pushes smaller bins

The morning light had just begun to peek over the horizon as Aaron Darland, 24, and dozens of other drivers for the City of San Antonio’s Solid Waste Management Department started up their garbage trucks.

Darland checked fluids, flipped on cameras and kicked the tires of the modern, side loader truck before heading out on his route last week.

Side-loader, as opposed to the rear-loader trucks that require manual manipulation of trash bins, are faster and more fun, Darland said, gesturing toward the joystick used to control the robotic arm that reaches out, grabs the bin and dumps the trash into the truck’s hopper to be hauled away.

“It’s like a video game,” he said, “except you can’t mess up.”

The city’s fleet of nearly 270 trucks and more than 800 employees serves more than 371,000 curbside customers three times every week for trash, recycling and organics. Combined with bulky item and brush pickups, that amounts to about 59 million collection opportunities every year, said David Newman, director of Solid Waste Management.

“We’re out and about a whole lot,” Newman told the San Antonio Report.

This week, City Council considered an increased environmental fee for solid waste customers for the first time 2019, as expenses have outpaced revenue for the department since 2020. The department also proposed higher monthly charges for larger bins, beginning next year — pending Council approval.

Council is slated to vote on the City of San Antonio’s fiscal year 2024 budget — which would increase Solid Waste Management’s budget by just over 5% to $177 million — on Sept. 14.

“We did not want to raise the rate during a pandemic,” Newman said. “However, at this time the fund is unable to support the current service levels without a rate increase.”

Council members were largely on board with the fee increase but also were concerned about how it may affect low-income residents.

The city recently made significant strides toward saving homeowners some money with an increased homestead exemption, but higher trash fees and CPS Energy rates may cancel that out, Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) said.

“When you pile all that back on, what are we really doing to save our folks out there these dollars?” Whyte asked.

Newman said the department will do a better job promoting its free services and smaller trash bins, which could save customers money.

If the proposed budget is approved, all customers’ monthly environmental fee would more than double, from $1.26 per month to $3 per month.

The price for the smallest, 48-gallon trash bin would stay the same at $14.76, but the cost for a medium-sized bin would go up $1 per month, from $18.76 to $19.76. The price for the 96-gallon large bin would go up $3.49 per month, from $26.76 to $30.25. There are no additional fees or various sizes for the blue recycling and green organics carts.

Customers who switch from large to small would see $189 in savings per year; large to medium would see $125 in savings. Both the environmental fee and trash bin fees are applied to CPS Energy bills.

Solid Waste Management, like most departments, is seeing rising costs from equipment and maintenance to fuel and staffing.

“Everything is going up,” Newman said. “We pay our employees more — that’s a good thing because we’re in competition with other disposal companies [and] we’re in competition with transportation companies across the nation.”

As part of the city’s $3.7 billion fiscal year 2024 budget, all non-uniformed city employees will receive a 4% wage increase, including solid waste employees.

“I can’t complain about that,” Darland said. With overtime, he makes roughly $50,000 per year and receives health and retirement benefits.

He is getting married in two months, and they plan to have “one or two” kids.

Another rising cost is dumping the refuse itself. The city does not own the landfills it uses or recycling and organics processing facilities, so “we’re somewhat at the mercy” of those fee increases, Newman said.

The need to clean up illegal dumping sites and homeless encampments, which Solid Waste Management assists, is also growing.

“We’re trying to pick it up as fast as people are putting it down,” Newman said.

Switching to a small or medium bin under the proposed fee structure would still save customers money even with the increased environmental fee, which would add nearly $21 per year, Newman noted.

Customers can call 311 or (210) 207-6000 to request a smaller bin.

Not everyone, especially large households with children, can easily avoid using large trash bins. But Newman estimated that, on average, about 45% of waste in a large trash bin could be diverted to recycling or organic bins.

If too many people adopt smaller bins, that could strain the department’s budget even further, he told the San Antonio Report. “We anticipate that some folks will downsize … that would be a good problem to have, I suppose — as long as [customers are] using the recycling and organics correctly.”

Currently, only 13% of the more than 371,000 Solid Waste customers use small trash bins and nearly 10% use the medium bin.

“If that drastically changes, that’s going to change our fee structure,” City Manager Erik Walsh said Tuesday. “And this time next year, we’ll have to look at how we rebalanced that.”

Still, San Antonio’s trash bills will remain among the lowest of comparable cities, Newman said. Customers who use the large trash bin under the proposal would see a $33.25 monthly total bill for solid waste.

Customers in Austin will pay $55.14 monthly for a large trash bin next year while Fort Worth customers will pay nearly $22.75, San Antonio officials estimate. Austin picks up recycling every other week and Fort Worth owns its own landfill, Newman noted.

“San Antonio has one of the highest service levels,” Newman said. “Based on a recent survey we have very high customer satisfaction and we have a very competitive rate.”

Darland’s safety check on Tuesday morning had a heightened sense of urgency as he and his fellow drivers had just watched a video from earlier this year of a garbage truck’s wheels detaching while driving on Interstate 410.

Two wheels popped off from either side of the truck and launched forward hundreds of feet as the truck lurched to a stop. The video had no audio, but drivers in the large meeting room inside the city’s Northwest Service Center gasped, groaned and chuckled as they watched.

The accident was a result of a flawed truck repair performed by a contractor, officials said. Luckily, the tires didn’t cause any serious bodily injuries, but a photo of a damaged vehicle was shown.

Refuse and recyclable collection is the seventh most deadly occupation in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. These workers deal with heavy machinery and refuse loads, as well as traffic and potentially harmful materials.

Darland chose the solid waste industry when he was 18.

“I didn’t want to go to college,” he said. “But I wanted to find a stable job that could support a family one day.”

He was one of the first to graduate from the department’s commercial driver’s license apprentice program, which gives temporary employees on-the-job training.

“I just like that it’s the same thing every day,” said Darland, who typically works 10-hour shifts from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. “I like having a routine.”

Safety is a big part of that routine, he added.

When he trains new drivers, he tells them: “You need to go at your own pace. You need to be safe about it. Don’t try to compare yourself to other drivers or try to be like them, because that’s how accidents happen.”

While most of the cameras on the trucks point out at the hopper and the road ahead and behind — one is trained on Darland.

“They’re always watching,” he said with a smile.

Technically, artificial intelligence is watching.

The footage from the cameras, which are constantly recording, is analyzed by a program that detects “risky driving behaviors such as following too close, falling asleep, holding a handheld device like a cell phone [or] not wearing a seatbelt,” Newman said. The system alerts a supervisor when risky behavior is detected, which is typically addressed with reminders or remedial training for drivers.

Darland said he doesn’t mind the surveillance. He simply pulls over when he needs to check his phone or otherwise needs to take his eyes off the road.

“I don’t mind it because I really shouldn’t be doing anything that’s not safe in the first place,” he said.

The city’s proposed 2024 budget includes nearly $640,000 for other technology upgrades to improve verification of curbside collection, driver navigation and route efficiency.

Missed bin collection is the top complaint called into 311, the city’s resident hotline to report non-emergency issues throughout the city, Newman said.

He likened the new system of technology upgrades the city is considering funding to the Pac-Man video game.

“As the driver goes through the route collecting cars, there will be dots on the map that will turn from one color to the next,” he said. “Once this is implemented, I’m expecting that we will have no missed collections. That’s huge.”

Senior Reporter Iris Dimmick covers public policy pertaining to social issues, ranging from affordable housing and economic disparity to policing reform and mental health. She was the San Antonio Report's... More by Iris Dimmick