Speaker numbers apply only to this recording.
On November 3, 2026, Jess Tedeo, Marketing Manager, and Osha Spearman, Environmental Enforcement Inspector, hosted an informational video titled "Talking Trash with Jess" to educate residents on proper use of city roll carts for trash and recycling.
Hi, I'm Jess Tedeo, Marketing Manager for the City of Spartanburg, and this is Talking Trash with Jess. With me here is my friend and colleague, Osha Spearman, Environmental Enforcement Inspector for the City. Osha, how are you doing today? I'm doing good, Jess. How about you feel? I am doing wonderful. So today we want to talk to our city residents about best practices for your city roll carts. Osha, what's the difference between the gray cart and the blue cart? Well, your gray is for household trash only, and then your blue is for recyclables. What we consider recyclables. No glass, no styrofoam, of course. No glass, no styrofoam, you heard. We have a whole list of everything that we can recycle on our website. So be sure to check that. Osha, what are your best practices for getting the cart to the curb? What's the best thing residents need to be doing? I would say get it out day before your service day and pull it back from that street or the curb, wherever you have it, pull it back no later than the day after pickup before your sunrise. We want to make sure that you bag that trash. Do not put loose trash in your gray cart, but your recyclables don't bag those. We want your recyclables to be loose and somewhat clean. Just give them a quick rinse. You don't want any kind of bugs getting into recycling. That's right. Um the other thing that we wanted to talk about with best practices for carts is what we can't take. Can't take. We do not take TVs, um, any other electronics, computer screens, um, tires. We do not take tires. No matter what anyone tell you, we do not take tires. So don't put them out. Um, also, what's a good practice is making sure that when you put your carts out, they're either a not close to one another, you want at least about three feet apart, not too close to your mailbox, not too close to your car, or whatever else you may have out there that you don't want, you know, to get grabbed in the process of getting service. Yeah, because if you do that, then you know when the when the truck comes by, it can either bang your fire hydrant, bang your mailbox, and you know it could damage your cart. So you definitely want to give that three feet of personal space to your city recycling and solid waste bins. Now if I have a furniture item, um like a couch or an appliance, like a refrigerator, what do I do with that? What I would suggest is you put it out the day before your service day. When the guy comes around and he serves your cart, he will actually uh document, record it, record it, and have it scheduled for pickup. Not sure when, but they will get back around to make sure that the stuff is pick up. Yes, ma'am, they'll come back. And there's another method. I if I needed to, I could just simply. You can go online and fill out a form and then you can also have it picked up that way. Osha, what do I do if I have a party at my house? Because I do love a good party. If I am overflowing with recyclables or with trash, what do I do? I mean, I can't close my lid, I've got too many friends.