COASTAL OBSERVER

Weeks of below-average temperatures arrived at the right time for Pawleys Island officials helping property owners replace their long-time trash collector. But they are concerned that the turnover will lead to problems as houses begin to fill up with spring vacationers.

“It’s hard to imagine how many issues could be involved with trash pickup,” Mayor Brian Henry said.

Those issues emerged late last year when Rutledge Disposal Service ceased operation. The company handled collections at 90 percent of the island’s 400 houses. The town sent out notices to owners that they needed to find a replacement. Most of them went with Bill Floyd Services.

“We pretty much believe over 90 percent of people have landed on a new provider,” Administrator Dan Newquist told Town Council this week. “There was, all of a sudden, 300 or more obsolete trash cans on the island.”

Council Member Mark Hawn said the number was closer to 800 cans, including ones that the town bought for property owners in 2010 when it started a recycling program. In 2019, the town learned that items that went into its blue recycling bins ended up in the Georgetown County landfill because it didn’t meet the county’s sorting requirements.

A roundup of excess trash bins by the town last month saw some of them end up at the landfill, Hawn said.

Those were collected by the town, and it’s likely there are still more out there.

“We’re trying to get all we can without being too invasive,” Hawn said.

He added that the town also kept some bins in reserve in case property owners later ask for their return. “We’ve got a little bit of everything,” he said.

“The challenge here is that renters are going to start putting stuff in those and no one’s going to haul it away and the weather starts warming up,” Council Member Paul Groce said.

Not only did houses get new cans, but the occupants got a new routine to get their trash to the street. That is one of the town’s biggest concerns as it looks ahead to the tourist season.

“Rutledge provided concierge service. They’ve been doing it so long, they know where the cans are,” Henry said.

The crews would take the bins from the house to the truck and replace them. Floyd picks up at the street side. It’s up to owners and renters to get the bins between the house and street.

“That’s been a little bit of a tougher challenge to resolve,” Newquist said.

Hawn met last week with real estate rental companies to make sure that the message gets out to owners and renters. He said they are all willing to help.

“It’s going to be critical that we push this down to the rental companies and hold them accountable,” Groce said.

Most of the island’s houses are rental properties.

The Pawleys Island Civic Association helped get word of the transition out to property owners, and Groce said some of them thought trash collection was the town’s responsibility. The more the town does to collect the redundant bins will reinforce that idea, he said.

“It’s not the town’s responsibility to source your trash collection service, but it’s the town’s responsibility to maintain an aesthetic overall that is pleasing not only to property owners, but to renters and tourism that drives our ability to have a staff and police department,” Henry said.

The council agreed to monitor the transition over the next six weeks. 

The town could consider creating a trash franchise or adding a “pull in, pull out” service to supplement what Floyd provides. It could also adopt an ordinance about the location of trash bins, Hawn said.

“None of these options are clear,” he said.

Groce said it’s important to resolve the issues now rather than “when rental companies start having people show up at 3 o’clock on Saturday with full bins of shrimp shells from the night before.”

“I’m glad this is occurring now, this time of year, versus the middle of summer,” Newquist said.