Trash disposal is more than a little inconvenient for people living in remote areas of Grundy County, County Commissioner Michael Brady says.
"Tarlton Valley people are having to travel something like 24 miles round trip to take their garbage off," Brady said Monday. "People in the Hubbard's Cove are traveling something like 24 to 26 miles."
Construction on trash drop-off points - officially called community convenience centers - for those areas in northeast and northwest Grundy will begin in June, Brady said.
Grundy now has convenience centers in Beersheba Springs, Altamont, Palmer, Gruetli-Laager, Coalmont and Tracy City that accept household garbage, metal, scrap wood, newspaper, aluminum cans, cardboard and mixed paper, officials said.
Brady said the county's first step is to acquire land for the centers. County officials are looking at state-owned land in the Tarlton Valley near the Collins River Bridge on state Highway 56, and are negotiating with landowners in the Hubbard's Cove area near state Highway 108 and Fred Lusk Road, he said.
Brady said the centers together will cost about $40,000, not including compactors. Officials also are researching recycling services, he said.
Grundy once operated its own landfill, but now sends its trash to the Marion County landfill for $36 per ton, Grundy County Mayor Lonnie Cleek said.
Brady and Cleek said Hubbard's Cove and Tarlton Valley residents keep their communities clean despite the long drive to dispose of garbage.
"We felt that [the communities are] as important a part of Grundy as here in Altamont, and they shouldn't have to make that long trek just to throw their garbage away," Cleek said.
He said the county has no plans now to build more convenience centers but will perform needed maintenance and repairs at the existing centers.
Compactors for the two new centers are still on the table, he said.
"We wanted to see what kind of volume of garbage we have before we decide on whether we need compactors," he said.