Guam Solid Waste Authority will hold a public hearing sometime in August to review new agency rules, including regulations for mandatory islandwide trash collection.
During a board meeting Thursday, directors said they would vote on the rules at the next board meeting. After that, the rules will be sent to the attorney general, the governor and the Legislature.
No date or time has been set for the hearing.
GSWA is using a customer database from Guam Waterworks Authority to find households that currently don’t have trash service. Solid Waste General Manager Irvin Slike said there are about 43,000 households getting water service, but only 21,000 have residential trash service.
“Half the people have been basically sharing bins with friends or relatives or neighbors,” he said. Some dispose of their household garbage at work or self-haul. Others dump illegally, he said.
Directors had wrestled with the question of what to do when customers don’t pay for service. Currently, the agency stops collecting trash and takes away the carts.
But if islandwide trash collection is mandatory, and the household doesn’t want to pay for trash pickup, that strategy won’t work.
Instead, GSWA will continue to collect garbage, but it will also adopt an aggressive bill collection process.
To accommodate more than 20,000 new customers, the agency will purchase 40,000 new carts – one for trash and one for recycling for each new household. That will cost about $2 million.
GSWA will begin the 10-month rollout of the islandwide program in 2027. Once the program begins, the agency says the cost of monthly collection will drop from more than $35 a household to $20-$22 per household.
