The village of Panama is reminding residents to keep all of their garbage out for pick-up by Casella Waste in the provided bins. Members of the Village Board are pictured during a recent meeting. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

PANAMA — The village of Panama provides garbage services to all village residents through Casella Waste, and with the company looking to make improvements such as efficiency and keeping their drivers safe, the village is reinforcing that residents must keep all garbage in the provided garbage cans.

At the July meeting of the Panama village board, Mayor William Schneider said that with Casella making these improvements, including new trucks that pick up the cans without the drivers needing to get out, the village needs to reinforce with residents that all garbage and recycling needs to be in the cans.

“This is not something that was a complaint by them, it was just brought to my attention by another person up on the food chain, not the boss,” Schneider said. “They just said, ‘Hey, just mention this.'”

Schneider said there was a week when one resident had a lot of cardboard out with their garbage and the collector had to take the extra time to get out and deal with it, and the garbage cannot be just thrown in by garbage collectors now because of the height of the new trucks.

“So it makes the job more difficult,” Schneider said. “We just need to make sure the residents understand that.”

A question was raised if on non-recycling weeks if residents could use those cans as well for non-recycling items, though it was also mentioned that that could cause problems as the village is paying for the service for one bin for each resident. It was also noted that the bins are very big with a lot of garbage able to fit, so it was also questioned why some residents have more than what fits in the bins.

Schneider said the village has received some questions through a Facebook post that was also put out on the issue. He noted that the provided garbage service does very well for the village, adding that hopefully all residents will get used to the new system soon.

The village also discussed reminding residents to be cognisant of traffic in the village during the upcoming July 17 to 19 weekend, as that will be Panama Rocks’ Wild America Nature Festival, and the village sale days. Schneider said all residents and anyone traveling through the village will need to drive with caution and be aware of traffic limitations.