Fairfield residents will have more options for disposing of their yard waste.

The city’s utility shed on Jefferson Avenue will host drop-off days Nov. 1-2 and Dec. 6-7.

FAIRFIELD — Fairfield residents looking to get rid of yard waste are in for a new change.

Fairfield Street Department Superintendent Joe Hird said he wants residents to know they will have more opportunities to dispose of yard waste next year than they have in the past few months since the South 20th Street compost site closed in August.

The compost site was open to residents to drop off yard waste or pick up free mulch, but unfortunately the city was unable to prevent the site from being abused by people who either dumped items other than yard waste or by contractors who dumped whole trees.

To compensate for the closure of the compost site, the street department hosted yard waste collection days at its maintenance shed at 1002 W. Jefferson Ave., as it did Oct. 4-5. Hird said the department will host several more of these events this year on the first Friday and Saturday of November (Nov. 1-2) and December (Dec. 6-7).

Hird said he doesn’t foresee there ever being a compost site where people can dump trash any time they want. He said problems with the compost site prove it will need staff once it opens. He also wants to start offering free mulch to city residents again, but he is concerned that if the mulch is placed where anyone can get it at any time of the day, some people will treat the area like a dump, something he doesn’t want.

It’s unclear whether the city will return to using the compost site on South 20th Street, continue hauling yard waste to the maintenance shed on Jefferson Avenue or try a third option. Hird said the problem with the compost site on South 20th Street is that he would have to send an employee there to either sit in a truck or build a small building to operate from.

Looking ahead to 2025, Hird said the city will welcome more high school students through the school-to-work program, and that should allow the street department to add more days for yard waste collection.

The union asked Hird why the city couldn’t monitor the compost site by installing a surveillance camera rather than staffing it. Hird said it’s a question he gets asked a lot and said it would be more work than it’s worth. He’ll have to check security camera footage every day to figure out when the illegal dumping event occurred, and then hope he can read the license plate or determine the contractor’s identity from their truck.

“Not all contractors put their names on the sides of their trucks, and the camera may not see them,” he said. “People think CCTV is the best answer, but we spend money watching video. It’s illogical.”

Hird said there is no alternative to staffing the compost site when it is open.

“And if we do this all the time, we won’t end up on the street,” he said. “We will have to compensate for the costs. The money we spend on the compost site is money we don’t spend on the streets, but it comes out of my operating budget.”

Now that it is clear that the city should charge for yard waste, the Fairfield City Council has drafted an ordinance to introduce yard waste coupons that residents can purchase when they want to remove their yard waste. The price for a full pickup truck load is $25 and is defined as a 4 by 4 by 8 foot area. The cost for a half pickup truck load will be $12.50. On October 14, the council passed a second reading of the resolution establishing these fees, with a third and final reading scheduled for its meeting on October 28.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at [email protected].