HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — Tire recycling fees more than doubled in some categories after the Carroll County Solid Waste Committee approved a new fee schedule at their meeting on Thursday, March 26. They also entered into a new five-year contract with Republic Services that will eventually cause monthly service fees to rise as soon as next year. Then the committee discussed ways to collect from county employees with unpaid garbage pickup balances.
Before they conducted any business, however, the committee resolved a grievance for resident Randy Moore, who said he had been paying several months for a garbage pickup service he never used.
Moore told the committee he had purchased a property but did not live there. When he switched the electricity into his name at that address, he did not realize it would automatically generate a garbage pickup account in his name as well. He said he would have signed an exclusion form on the spot had he known.
Because the bills were going to the property rather than his home, Moore said he was unaware the charges were accumulating. By the time he brought the matter to the committee, the bill had grown to $180.
“It’s a service that was not received, not used, and not requested,” Moore said.
Committee chairman John Austin pressed Moore on why he had waited months to bring the issue forward.
“Had you have come to us when you got your first bill, we obviously could’ve fixed it,” Austin said.
Moore acknowledged he hadn’t known that was an option, and said the situation stemmed from ignorance of county policy rather than any attempt to avoid the fee.
“With every policy, there’s exceptions,” he said, “and I believe that this is one of them.”
Committee member Darrell Ridgely said he understood Moore’s situation firsthand, as he had dealt with the same issue himself on an estate.
Ridgely made the motion to grant the refund. It passed.
Republic contract.
The committee approved a second amendment to their waste disposal agreement with Republic Services, locking in a new five-year contract effective November 3, 2026. Under the agreement, rates will increase 2.75% in year one, 3.0% in years two and three, and 3.25% in years four and five.
The county currently pays Republic $22.40 per pickup and charges residents $25 per month.
Solid Waste Director Jeff Heyduck explained that the difference between what the county pays and they charge customers goes toward the department’s overhead costs.
Committee member Jay Phipps calculated that by 2031, the county’s cost would reach roughly $26.85 and said residents would eventually feel it too.
“My mom and daddy don’t pay on percentages,” Phipps said. “They’re going to worry about what their fee is [in the future].”
Austin said he would recommend raising the resident fee when the new contract term begins. He said a $5 to $7 one-time increase at the beginning of the contract period is better than incremental annual changes.
Austin also said that the fixed percentage increases for the county are easier to budget around, but also warned that changes may be necessary in the future, and spoke about the risk of fees getting too high.
“At some point in time, we could price ourselves out of mandatory collection,” he said. “I think if you get to that $40 to $45 range a month, it’s going to be painful for a lot of people anywhere. And the concern I have for the county is the illegal dumping will increase, because what will happen is we’ll go to voluntary, and [Republic] will lose 60% of the customers.”
Republic representative Todd Chamberlain echoed that concern.
“If you don’t have curbside collection, you have the worst competitor in your county,” he said, “and that’s the ditch.”
Heyduck noted that usage of the recycling center’s roll-off containers has surged in recent years, from roughly $18,000 to $20,000 annually before the COVID era to potentially $60,000 this year. The increased cost, he said, is driven by usage volume, not rate increases.
Austin said the volume spike had less to do with COVID than with the chaos of 2021, when Red River Waste Solutions filed for bankruptcy and abruptly stopped collecting garbage, leaving trash piled up along county roads for weeks before Republic Services stepped back in.
“People had an enormous amount of waste on the side of the road,” Austin said, “and then they found out [about the dumpster].”
Tire fees.
The committee also approved a new tire recycling fee schedule, after Liberty Tire Recycling raised its rates to the county.
Director Heyduck said the county had been losing money on tire collection and needed to at least cover its costs.
Under the new fee schedule, car and light truck tires off the rim will cost $6, up from $3. Semi truck tires off the rim jump from $15 to $25; super singles from $25 to $35; and off-road and loader tires will now run $30. Implement and agricultural tires rise from $5 to $25. Tires on rims are double the off-rim rate in each category. Tractor and loader tires remain $1 per rim inch, and earthmover tires are $250 per ton.
Heyduck said the county normally spends between $2,000 and $4,000 per year on tire collection, though this year could reach $5,000 after one individual brought in a large quantity. He added that Liberty Tire is the only vendor collecting tires across the multi-state region.
Delinquent accounts.
Austin raised the issue that there are county employees with unpaid garbage fees, and proposed that the committee should pursue payroll deductions or civil suits to collect.
Heyduck said the district currently has several civil suits involving unpaid balances, and that last year was the department’s best year for delinquent collections. They brought in over $76,000, compared to the typical $30,000 to $35,000.
Austin said the committee would likely move to file suits.
“You just put them on this and say, we’ll file suit against these people,” he said, “and then maybe they’ll pay.”