Aug. 4—MARIETTA — The city is in the process of building three dumpster containers by the Square at a cost of $270,000 to beautify the area and prevent trash from piling up on the street.

The first container built sits behind the Whitlock Avenue Starbucks.

Construction is wrapping up this month on the second of the three containers, located at the corner of Winters and Anderson streets near the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art. The containers' sizes vary slightly — the one currently under construction will be 15 feet by 67-feet.

The third container is slated to sit near the intersection of Hansell and Root streets.

The block of buildings along Winters Street currently has a line of dumpsters behind them, stretching along the alley near Anderson Street. The containers are meant to conceal the eyesore of the dumpsters to those who pass by. Soon, there will be a proper place to store them away from pedestrians and businesses, with Waste Management under contract from the city to handle sanitation and recycling services, according to the Public Works Department.

The project for each container has a budget of $90,000, according to Mark Rice, director of Public Works. Rice and his team wanted to clean up the area behind Winters Street, as well as eliminate the excess waste piling up around the current dumpsters in the area.

"Those dumpsters serve the businesses that are located in the Downtown Solid Waste District," said Rice. "That's basically everything in and around the Square."

The City Council approved the building of the containers about three years ago, Rice said, but construction was delayed by the pandemic. Construction on the third container should start early next year, he said.

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