Summit Hill residents will experience some changes to their garbage collection schedules.

Starting in June, all residents in the borough will have collection on a Tuesday. Presently the east side of town is picked up on a Tuesday and the west side is collected on a Wednesday.Recycling will continue every two weeks, but that also will be on a Tuesday. Recycling day is currently on a Thursday.On Monday night, the borough council awarded a new four-year contract for trash pickup to Tamaqua Transfer, which had the contract for the past four years. The only firm to bid against Tamaqua Transfer was J. P. Mascaro of Souderton.For a four-year contract with an alternate, the bids were $122,000 apart, with Tamaqua Transfer giving the low quote of $1,231,260. The alternate is to have electronic recycling one day per year, with the date to be announced by the borough.The contract also calls for two cleanup weeks, which will be separate from the electronic recycling day.According to Council President Jesse Walck, the new trash contract, with the electronic recycling provision, is only about $2,000 per month more than the present contract.When the borough sought bids for the contract, it asked for quotes in one-, two-, three- and four-year options.Larry Wittig, president of Tamaqua Transfer, said that even during the electronic recycling pickup, such things as air conditioners must have freon removed before being placed at curbside.Wittig also asked the borough to consider changing a provision in the contract which allows for exemptions for owners of properties that are vacant for a specified period of time.He said of 15 municipal contracts he has, Summit Hill is the only one which has such a provision. He said the contract is bid for 1,500 residents, but when the last contract was bid, that was reduced by 55 to 60 dwelling units.Presently the borough has about 90 exemptions it grants, with the lost fees adjusted in the borough's payment to Tamaqua Transfer.Wittig explained that the borough would probably have more bidders on the contract if such a provision didn't exist, because the trash collectors are actually more concerned about tonnage than the number of dwelling units.