Customers of several garbage hauling companies in Butler County have received letters about changes to the amount of trash they can put out for pickup.

The letter from Tri County Industries, a waste hauling and recycling company based in Grove City, sent to customers in Center Township earlier this month, had telephones at both Tri County and Butler County's Recycling and Waste Management office ringing off the hook last week.

Tri County's letter states its normal garbage pickup will be limited to three 30-gallon cans or bags per week, and that if that does not suit customers' needs, there are other pickup options they can buy, such as buying more bags that can be put out for collection.

Until the change, customers could put out as much garbage and trash as they pleased.

Tri County also says the pickup change announced on May 5 is the result of changes made by the Butler County Municipal Waste Management Ordinance in 2004.

The company covers other communities in the northern area of the county.

The history behind this change is a complicated one.

Sheryl Kelly, the county's recycling and waste management manager, said that two years ago the county reworded its ordinance to clarify a definition.

In 1990, the state decided it wanted at least 25 percent of all garbage to be recycled to help relieve pressure on landfills. So the Legislature passed what became Act 101, which required every county to pass a municipal waste management ordinance and included a plan to increase recycling in each county.

Kelly said the county decided the way to encourage people to recycle more was to eliminate unlimited garbage pickup in the county.

The clarified garbage ordinance simply calls for waste haulers to define how much garbage they would pick up in a measurable way, Kelly said.

For the most part, waste haulers are contracted through municipalities for garbage pickup and these contracts explain how much garbage can be picked up for a certain price.

"This helps the haulers know roughly how much garbage to expect and estimate how much manpower and how many trucks they will need," Kelly said.

It also means that the county can measure how much garbage residents are producing.

Kelly said when the ordinance was approved in 1992 it was hoped county residents would reduce the amount of garbage they were throwing away by recycling some of it, thereby helping to reduce the money they needed to spend on garbage pickup.

Almost right from the start, Kelly said, a waste hauler in the southeastern part of the county "interpreted" the ordinance to mean the company could continue unlimited pickup and others followed suit "just to be able to compete in business."

Kelly, who joined the county office in the late 1990s, said her office updated the ordinance in 2004 so waste haulers and municipalities knew they had to end the unlimited pickup practice once and for all.

She is unsure why, two years after the redefinition of the ordinance, that this has become an issue, but as far as she can tell waste haulers waited for new contracts with the municipalities they service to announced their conformity with the county's ordinance.

Jerry Bowser, Tri County's general manager, said he supports doing away with unlimited pickup because it cuts down on the company's costs but also because it promotes recycling.

"This is a great thing and it should have been done a long time ago," Bowser said.

Both Bowser and Kelly said if people wanted to pay to throw more garbage away, they have that right.

"We aren't trying to tell people how much garbage they can throw away, but allowing the opportunity for people to reduce their garbage bills through recycling," Kelly said.

She points to Butler's contract with Waste Management that was approved by city council in the fall. That contract limits garbage pickup to 10 30-gallon bags or cans per week plus one large item.

"Its comes down to what the municipality thinks its residents need," Kelly said.

Waste Management plans to send out letters to city residents reminding them of the limit.