'Uber for Trash': Amarillo council looks at new incentives to combat illegal dumping

Amarillo Globe-News
Michael Cuviello, Amarillo Globe-News
November 16, 2023

The city of Amarillo is considering using a program that they described as “Uber for Trash” that would involve letting citizens to get paid to clean up areas of illegal dumping and get paid for it.

At Tuesday’s Amarillo City Council meeting, Donny Hooper, the Amarillo public works director, presented to the council the idea to combat illegal dumping across the city. The program would be aimed at the worst-hit areas of the city including the Barrio, Eastridge, San Jacinto and North Heights neighborhoods.

Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley seemed very receptive of the program as a way that local businesses and contractors could supplement income in some of the slower times of the year when their trucks and trailers might not be used as much.

An example of many piles of trash dumped outside of dwellings in the North Town Estates mobile home community of the Eastridge Neighborhood is shown in the March 2022 file phot.
Michael Cuviello/Amarillo Globe-News

"We have been doing everything we can overall and have made great strides to work on the problem of cleaning up illegal dumping. Still, our innovation team has come up with a new idea working along with the mayor and the council where we will hire contractors locally," Hooper said. "These contractors can be just about anybody that has a trailer or a truck to go in our alleys to participate in cleaning up our illegal dumping sites.”

Hooper said that before implementation, a pilot program will be run to see how effective it is. Through the program, contractors will take on jobs in certain areas of the city and will provide before and after pictures to verify that the areas were cleaned up. Each job could pay as much as $300 per cleanup.

With the program, Hooper said that local businesses would be able to make greater use of their equipment to allow companies a way to keep their employees gainfully employed when they are at their slowest periods. Another benefit, according to Hooper, is that groups like Boy Scouts or other organizations could use this as a way to raise funds. Hooper said that the program could save the city money over hiring specific contractors that cost more for this type of pickup.

The city of Amarillo collected more than 190 tons of trash during the annual Earth Day Cleanup this year.
Photo Provided By The City Of Amarillo

“We are going to run the pilot, and if successful, we are targeting the spring as a possibility to fully implement the program for the public,” Hooper said. "We are looking at spring since that is our busiest time of illegal dumping, so we want everything refined by then so we can roll this program out.”