Dive Brief:

• Seven neighborhoods in Orlando, FL will begin a six-month pilot program offering revamped trash and recycling collection schedules in response to residents’ complaints that their recycling bins were overflowing between alternate week pickups. The new schedule will offer one garbage pickup day and one recycling pickup day each week, as opposed to two garbage days a week and one recycling day every other week. 
• Orlando has not done a comprehensive survey to determine the public’s thoughts on the plan, but Mike Carroll, manager of Orlando's Solid Waste Division said to the Orlando Sentinel, "We’re affecting several thousand houses, and I've probably not gotten 30 emails about it. Those few e-mails expressed mixed thoughts."
• If the pilot results of the program are good, the entire city could see a switch in garbage and recycling scheduling. 

Dive Insight:

Any change to the system, though intended to find more cost efficient ways to deal with trash, can generate confusion and frustration among customers. Orange County is being proactive as it enlists "guinea pigs" by seeing that participants are offered a third free recycling bin, as well as extra trash pickup should they miss their pickup during this transitional period.

Solid waste officials hope to avoid consequences such as what happened last month in Orange County during a pilot launch, in which the county fielded tens of thousands of complaints from customers whose homes were missed during collections. But Carroll pointed out that Orange County underwent a complete service makeover, not only changing pickup schedules, but switching contractors and moving to automated trucks and county-issued roll carts.

Mayor Buddy Dyer expects Orlando County residents to be happy with the change, based on an informal survey, commenting support for the idea was "overwhelming."

The city will assess the transition’s impact on various sized families and will determine whether increased loads during holidays can be managed in one garbage pickup.