PORT ST. LUCIE — Port St. Lucie voters will be asked in November whether they support increasing residential trash collection from once a week to twice a week after the City Council approved placing a nonbinding straw poll on the ballot.
The advisory vote is intended to measure public interest in expanding garbage collection service. While the results would not automatically change the city's collection schedule, the City Council would review the outcome before deciding whether to implement the change.
Councilman Anthony Bonna said residents have expressed differing opinions about the current service level, making a public vote the best way to gauge community sentiment.
"260,000 people, you have to make one decision. There's going to be people on all sides of the decision. I've talked to people who say I barely use once a week, and then I have people that, like you, we have several children at home, we have diapers, we need twice a week, we need the second can," he said.
"And so this is the opportunity, this is the chance for the residents to choose. And so I think we need to give them the opportunity to choose. And so I would support moving this forward."
The proposal comes after repeated requests from residents who say weekly trash pickup is not sufficient for some households.
If the city ultimately adopts twice-a-week collection, residents would see higher solid waste fees. City staff estimate the annual fee would increase by $131 by 2028.
Some residents have suggested offering an optional service for those who want additional pickups. However, Solid Waste Director Mariana Feldpausch said the city's collection system is not designed to operate that way.
"Well, in the way you can customize it with the amount of carts that you can get, you can purchase additional carts for an annual fee. The reason we can't customize, like we pick up less during the summer and then more, is because you still need the trucks and the trucks have to run. If you let trucks sit for multiple months, you would have a lot of maintenance and a lot of issues that would come about with the trucks," she said.
"And you would still have to pay for the full amount of the trucks because you would still need the additional trucks. So you would still have all those costs throughout the year, whether you're picking up more or less in certain months."
If the City Council moves forward with the change following the straw poll, staff said the city would need to reroute collection service citywide, a process expected to take up to 15 months.