BALTIMORE, MD - Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced today that the City of Baltimore is requesting bids to purchase and distribute approximately 210,000 64-gallon cans for mixed refuse collection. Once a contract is awarded, each residential household currently eligible for trash collection in Baltimore City will receive a heavy duty resin trash container with an attached lid and wheels. There will be no additional cost to the resident or property owner for the cans, which will remain the property of the City of Baltimore.

 

This past year, the Baltimore City Department of Public Works conducted a pilot program in the Belair-Edison and several Mondawmin-area neighborhoods to test how well the municipal cans would work in different types of Baltimore neighborhoods.  The participating neighborhoods received a municipal can at each address and the City’s trash-hauling trucks, called load packers, were retrofitted with lift arms that pick up and empty the mixed refuse from the cans.  The success of the pilot program made the decision to expand the municipal can program throughout the City an easy one.

 

“We wanted to see if municipal cans make a difference,” said Mayor Rawlings-Blake. “We found that they did. In the pilot area, Rat Rubout calls decreased by nearly 26 percent, mixed waste tonnage decreased, and the Department saw a reduction in workers injuries as a result of lifting and overexertion.”

 

Municipal cans help residents better contain their household waste, a key factor in reducing litter and keeping neighborhoods cleaner. “The Municipal Trash Can Pilot demonstrated to us that this is the future of efficient and effective waste management in Baltimore City,” said Department of Public Works Director Rudolph S. Chow, P.E. “Cans provided by the City do help keep trash properly stored and the use of municipal cans across the city gives us the best tool we could have to combat rats and keep our communities clean.”

 

A bid is expected to be awarded by the end of this year. The schedule for delivery of the cans and details about the cans themselves will be made after the contract is awarded.