The City of Oakland and Waste Management of Alameda, Inc. (WMAC) celebrated Monday the launch of new improvements to bulky waste service.
Effective November 15, all Oakland residents can manage the disposal of their bulky items with new or improved resources and services:
- All Oakland residents may now schedule appointments with WMAC to drop off their bulky items at no charge at WMAC’s Davis Street Resource Recovery Complex and Transfer Station (located at 2615 Davis Street in San Leandro).
- Residents in Multi-Family Dwellings (buildings more than four residential units) can now schedule a curbside appointment once a year directly with WMAC instead of requesting appointments through their landlords as they formerly had to.
- Residents in Single-Family Dwellings (buildings with up to four residential units) can schedule an appointment for bulky items collection at the curbside, increased from once per year to twice per year.
- Residents can now set out 4 cubic yards of items, plus recyclable items including mattresses, tires, TVs and computers, up from 3 cubic yards for Single-Family and 1.5 cubic yards for Multi-Family.
This builds on the progress already made by the City’s successful Bulky Block Party service event series. OPW and its partnership with WMAC continues to provide more options for Oaklanders to conveniently and properly dispose of their bulky items.
“All Oaklanders deserve a cleaner city and an easy, affordable way to dispose of those items that won’t fit in their usual trash bin,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said. “Today we’re taking big steps forward on both counts – including making access to service easier for renters, an especially impacted community in Oakland. Now all Oaklanders need to do is pick up the phone and take advantage of these new free services!”
"Everyone in our community has a responsibility to help keep trash and dumping off our streets,” Councilmember and Public Works Committee Chair Noel Gallo said. “And many in our communities need better access and information about the services they need to be a part of the solution. These services will be a big help to our residents. It’s always been our responsibility, each one of us, to properly dispose of our own belongings and make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer. We also need to keep pressing for more enforcement of our laws around illegal dumping, so that people in other cities know that they can no longer come to Oakland to dump their unwanted materials."
“East Oakland is disproportionately harmed by illegal dumping and our communities have been organizing and volunteering to combat the problem for years,” Councilmember Treva Reid said. “These improved services provide some much-needed reinforcements to those community efforts and I encourage all our residents to take advantage of them.”
“From Oct. 1, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021, Oakland Public Works staff cleaned up more than 23,000 tons of illegal dumping,” Oakland Public Works Director G. Harold Duffey said. “Our crews are working harder than ever, but we know our community is still feeling illegal dumping impacts more than ever. We also know that, when we are able to trace dumped material back to a source, it’s more often than not an Oakland household. With these free new and improved services, no Oaklander should have to dump their belongings on the street or hire an illegal hauling service. We can do better by tackling every angle of this problem and cutting it off at the source.”
“We’re doing our part to help keep Oakland clean and provide residents with as many opportunities as we can to use a free service that properly disposes of materials,” WMAC President Barry Skolnick said. “We’re working with the city to offer the service to more residents, provide more options for disposal and make scheduling an appointment or drop off as easy as possible.”
Additional highlights of the updated service include:
- The program increases collection of residential bulky items from 150 collections per day to 200 per day
- Residents will also be able to schedule appointments to drop off bulky items at the Davis Street facility, which will accept 50 appointments per weekdays and 100 per day on Saturdays.
- Tenants in multi-family dwelling units will be able to directly schedule bulky item collection -- this collection will occur the last week of the month, up to 1,000 pickups per month.
- There is no new cost to the City for this new enhanced program
All Oakland community members can learn more about trash, recycling, and compost services available in Oakland by going to www.oaklandrecycles.com. Oaklanders can learn more about services available to combat and reduce illegal dumping – and learn how they themselves can help! – at www.oaktownproud.com.