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By DONALD MOTTERN | Staff Writer 

PELHAM – On Wednesday, March 6, officials with the city of Pelham confirmed that changes to trash routes managed by Amwaste in Pelham, Hoover and Mountain Brook would soon go into effect. The development came following a discussion held between city leaders and representatives from Amwaste that will realign current trash routes and eliminate the need for Wednesday/Saturday pick-ups.

The move, which will impact roughly one third of Pelham’s customers, was put in place to provide significant improvements and reduce delays in trash coverage over holiday times.

“Because Pelham customers have two pick-ups per week, those whose regular collection day falls on a holiday only receive one pick-up per week,” read a public release from the city of Pelham. “This adversely affects Monday/Thursday customers, which became evident during the 2023 Christmas and New Year’s holidays. The realignment will allow Amwaste to shift pick-ups to the next day during weeks with observed holidays.”

The realignment and elimination of Wednesday/Saturday pick-ups will also allow for Amwaste to better adjust to holiday planning and shifted schedules that will allow all households to receive two collection days per week, regardless of holidays.

“For example, Amwaste will not collect trash on Memorial Day,” read the release. “Monday customers will be picked up on Tuesday, Tuesday on Wednesday and so on. Fridays will shift to Saturdays in these cases, which will be the only time Saturday pick-ups will take place.”

The move was also taken to address staffing concerns noticed by Amwaste that saw continued issues with procuring drivers for consistent service every Saturday.

“We have been meeting with Mountain Brook and Hoover as part of the solid waste authority in regard to Amwaste doing away with the Wednesday/Saturday pickups,” Pelham City Manager Gretchen DiFante said. “Frankly, most of the problems that they have are on the Wednesday/Saturday routes and the main reason for that is that they keep losing Saturday drivers. People, surprisingly enough, do not want to work every single Saturday. So, whereas we have consistent route drivers on all of our other days, we do not have that consistency on Saturdays.”

Customers that currently have their trash picked up on the Wednesday/Saturday schedule will be transitioned to either Monday/Thursday or Tuesday/Friday routes depending on their locations. Provided that the comprehensive realignment will adjust nearly every existing route in some capacity, some alterations to customers currently on these two routes will also take place.

City officials also confirmed that Amwaste is currently in the process of mailing informational postcards to all households that will be affected by the change. A new interactive map that will visually display the altered routes is also being developed and will be made available to all Pelham customers upon its completion.

Once completed, that map will be uploaded to the city’s Trash & Recycling webpage located at Pelhamalabama.gov/868/Trash-Recycling. Those with questions regarding trash collection are also encouraged to visit the webpage.

Hoover City Clerk Wendy Dickerson shared during the council meeting on Monday, March 4 that Hoover would also see changes from Amwaste with more than 12,000 customers being affected—many of those are Shelby County residents.

According to Dickerson, pickup days will be determined by address with those living south of Interstate 459, which would include the Shelby County portion of Hoover, now shifting to pick-up days of Monday/Thursdays routes. The latter of those days will be the day to put out recycling.

Outside of these route changes Pelham and Amwaste have assured customers that no other alterations to service or pick-ups will change and that “everything else remains the same related to pick-ups.”

The new route schedules are currently slated to begin on March 25.