Two small milestones at a City Council meeting signaled how managing trash and recycling is changing for the better.

Recycling center staff

Council authorized Mayor Indya Kincannon’s administration to partner with Keep Knoxville Beautiful to staff the City’s four recycling drop-off centers.

The $396,611 annual agreement will fund the hiring of recycling assistants to staff each of the centers 53 hours a week – keeping the sites clean and orderly while providing guidance to people with questions about how to most effectively recycle.

Downtown’s first trash compactors

Though still several months away from being installed and going online, the City’s first two trash compactors will be located at 501 W. Church Ave.

The property owner, RB Knoxville, is leasing space at no cost to the City, and the compactors will be available to residents, businesses and visitors. The current trash-collection model is outdated and unable to keep up with the growing needs of a growing downtown. Moving to a network of trash and recycling compactors will result in cleaner and less cluttered sidewalks, with less noise and odors associated with garbage trucks that now dump 700 carts at 80 locations nine or more times a week.

Additional compactors will be installed in the coming months and years. The end result will be a cleaner, modernized waste management system that can scale up as downtown continues to grow.

In other matters, City Council:

• Endorsed the South Waterfront Down River Master Plan, the culmination of more than 20 years of community engagement that will serve as a framework for future investment. Council also thanked South Waterfront Advisory and Advocacy Group members for their work in helping to develop the master plan.

• Authorized Mayor Kincannon to enter into an agreement with the Community Action Committee and KCDC to fund the case management program focused on homelessness prevention in KCDC’s housing for elderly and disabled residents. The City’s contribution will be more than $150,000.