TRASH

The City will continue to pick up large items on trash day, free-of-charge. However, residents are now required to contact the Waste Management call center at 800-972-4545 at least 24 hours before their regularly scheduled trash collection day to request a pick up.

The DPW says "The free service is designed to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods by ensuring that large discarded bulky items do not become eyesores in the city’s neighborhoods." If this was really true, then trash collectors working for or contracted by the city of Providence would call in when they see bulky items and they would clear the street as they are supposed to. In a city with as many multi-family houses as it has single-residential units, city responsibility for this collection would seem reasonable.

The Providence Department of Public Works (DPW) offers free collection of bulky items on trash day such as televisions, furniture, mattresses, refrigerators, washers and other large appliances. It's not really free because your tax dollars are paying for this, but you get the idea.

The "free" service is designed to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods by ensuring that large discarded bulky items do not become eyesores in the city’s neighborhoods. The city is SO concerned about this that they do not use their ability to have regular collections call in locations where bulky items have been left with the trash. The city is SO concerned about this that they will leave items on the sidewalk week after week until someone--anyone--calls it in, so long as it is not called in by someone such as a paid TRASH COLLECTOR.

Computer equipment is also considered special waste. The city wants you to go to their parking lot at 700 Allens Avenue and dispose of your "e-waste" in the specially designated "e-waste pods."

The city is extremely anal about this.   Do not call DPW at their main number of 401-467-7950 as that poor woman who answers the phone most of the time does NOT want to hear from you, does not want to talk to you, and will not transfer you to a live person even though she full well has the capability to do so and she is actually paid by YOUR tax dollars to do so. 

Providence also has mandatory recycling and the city reserves the right to not pick up your trash if you do not put recycle buckets out with the trash. The buckets can be EMPTY, but they must be put out anyway, one for paper and one for "hard recycle."

The city is so concerned that large discarded bulky items do not become eyesores in the city's neighborhoods that it will leave your trash out week after week if you do not use recycle buckets. If you need recycle buckets, you can purchase them from the DPW for $5.00 each. This sounds unreasonable, but it's really not. There bins used to cost the city $3 each, but since Mayor Cicillini wanted the bins to look prettier by putting a big "P" on them, they now cost the city $8 each. As a service to the taxpayers, the city still only charges the taxpayers $5.00...your tax dollars at work!

The "P" does stand for "Providence," not "putz," as has been speculated.