NATCHEZ, Miss. – Natchez residents will begin in June paying about $6 more a month to have their garbage picked up. City aldermen Tuesday approved increasing the city’s garbage collection charge from $24.15 to $30.44 a month per household.
The rate increase is due partly to the added service of residents having their large yard debris and bulky items hauled away.
This comes as the Natchez Board of Aldermen renews the contract with Arrow Disposal Service, which has been the city’s garbage collector since 2018.
Arrow will pick up Natchez residents’ bulky trash twice a month on a schedule with rules to be specified in more detail later to the public for this curbside service. This new service will be in addition to the three-times-a-week pickups (including one for recyclables) Arrow has previously been doing.
The 26 percent monthly garbage-fee increase equates to $6.29 more a month and $75.48 more a year that each of about 5,600 Natchez households must pay.
The contract aldermen approved Tuesday with Arrow curtails the size of large items – such tree limbs being limited to six feet in length – that trashmen will take away.
City officials said they plan to have the various garbage collection rules and schedules put in writing to mail with the monthly bills that city residents get from the Natchez Water Works for their water-sewer and garbage services. The city website will also have this information.
Using a special truck, Arrow will soon begin taking Natchez residents’ trashed appliances, furniture, mattresses, limbs and other large rubbish it hasn’t been picking up.
Arrow the past six years has been providing curbside pickups for the 5,600 Natchez households that get two wheeled carts to separate their disposable trash and recyclables. Plantation Oaks landfill buries the disposable trash at the south Adams County waste dump owned by WM.
Alabama-based Arrow was the lowest of bids in a competition with Waste Pro, Hometown Waste and WM (formally Waste Management) also wanting to be Natchez’ garbage collector.
Natchez has annually spent about $1.68 million for garbage collection and disposal. The new contract with Arrow increases the trash-collection costs by more than $500,000.
The household garbage rate increase is the second within a year. The Board of Aldermen last August raised it from $22.17 a month to the $24.15, which was levied because of the higher costs Arrow has endured due to economic inflation. The monthly garbage collection charge also includes $1 for the city’s mosquito-control measures.
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