Final public input meeting Monday for Baltimore's 10-year solid waste management plan

BALTIMORE -- Baltimore City has drawn up a new waste management plan, but residents still have a say in what it will look like. 

The Department of Public Works' current 10-year solid waste management plan expires this year, and the final draft of the new plan is out, but the public can still sway what's in it. 

The State of Maryland requires the city to maintain a solid waste plan that covers the next 10 years. The DPW's plan has to be approved the Maryland Department of the Environment and adopted by the city. The current plan was adopted by the city in Dec. 2013. 

The last public meeting to weigh in on the updated plan starts at 6 p.m. Monday at Arlington Elementary School on West Rogers Avenue. Participants can join in person (register) or online. 

The plan goes over it all: garbage pickup, how it's disposed of, and how it's recycled and reused.

The DPW says the plan is, overall, a combination of ideas and initiatives aimed to improve the city's cleanliness.

It comes as the agency's director, Jason Mitchell, is stepping down Friday following criticism over recycling pickup services. DPW says a lot of the program's pitfalls are due to a 1-in-4 vacancy rate with staff.

We've reported on how neighbors and city leaders alike have been saying these services have been spotty.

"It is just not acceptable to not even have an estimate on how many crews and trucks we need to get the services back up started," City Councilman Zeke Cohen told WJZ in March. 

"It's very, very hard on them, I'm sure," sympathetic Orangeville resident Marie Lehmer previously told WJZ. "I I mean, they're doing a job most people would not touch."

You can see the final draft of the plan online on DPW's website.