Category: Blog

     If members of Osceola High School’s Air Force Junior ROTC unit come to you asking for empty Amazon boxes, you can hand them over for a good cause. Know they will be recycled, and you may help a student earn a $500 Amazon gift card. It’s all part of the “Amazon Challenge” that runs through Jan. 10 at OHS. The male and female cadets who recycle the most of the online merchant’s boxes will win the cards. To help the cause, Underground Refuse Systems, a Kissimmee-based company changing the landscape of trash and recycled materials removal, has donated a pair of its patented waste storage containers to the school. URS President Jay Wheeler unveiled the containers and announced […]

      There’s a new way to get rid of your trash on Clearwater Beach. The city installed new, state of the art receptacles and officials said they’ll help keep the beaches clean and tidy. Clearwater is the second place in the country to have this new trash system. You put your trash or recycling into a bin, then it’s stored in a vault 12 feet underground. “It creates some efficiency, it’s esthetically pleasing, it looks a lot better than what we had before, and it’s enclosed, and that’s the big thing for us. It’s an enclosed container where the wind doesn’t blow the trash all over, rodents don’t get into it and we don’t have to keep coming […]

      Dozens of city and county managers from around Florida met at Kissimmee City Hall Thursday to check out the city’s new underground refuse system. Two underground dumpsters have been installed at City Hall with others rolled out at The Hamilton at Lakeside Apartments on John Young Parkway. The company contracted by the city for the program is run by former Osceola County School Board Member Jay Wheeler. “Our collaboration with the City of Kissimmee is so important because this is where we started, and now, we have a place to show other governments how this works,” he told the News-Gazette last week. Collecting refuse underground is touted for freeing up space for pedestrians and parking in urban […]

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The city of Clearwater is shelling out more than $1 million to buy six new trash systems and a truck to collect the garbage. When the sand is packed with people, garbage starts to pile up so the city started looking into Underground Refuse Systems. Clearwater City Council signed off on the idea last month. “Besides being aesthetically pleasing, they will give us some efficiency in being able to not have to service those areas for garbage as many times as we do, especially in the high season,” Clearwater Solid Waste Director Earl Gloster said at an October work session. It’s a two-part system: sidewalk bins and underground containers that can store large amounts of waste. […]

This article first appeared in Osceola News Gazette. In this case, it’s OK to talk trash. The city of Kissimmee will be the first municipality in the United States to use underground receptacles emptied by a truck with a crane mechanism, replacing the metal open-air dumpsters that can be foul-smelling. Kissimmee-based Underground Refuse Systems, the brainchild of longtime School Board member Jay Wheeler, has brought the technology to the United States for the first time. It originally debuted in Barcelona, Spain, Florence, Italy and at Disneyland Paris. Wheeler’s company is an American distributor for the technology. The city of Kissimmee is the first domestic government agency to partner up. Down the line, Wheeler said he hopes that the 5-ton receptacles […]

This article first appeared in Orlando Sentinel. A new line of attractive public trash bins, with more security from animals, is debuting in Kissimmee today. The bins are built into 11-foot-deep pits in the ground, the product of businessman Jay Wheeler’s new company, Kissimmee-based Underground Refuse Systems. The containers will keep trash in Kissimmee’s public areas “out of view and clean for years to come,” said Wheeler in a news release. The city is rolling out 17 of the underground bins. The bins are hoisted up by a crane and dumped into a truck, then lowered back into their concrete cellar. The portion of the trash bin above ground has a modern rounded look with a trash door. Wheeler has plans […]

This article first appeared on Wasted Dive. Dive Brief: Kissimmee, FL has become the first U.S. city to partner with Underground Refuse Systems for the installation of 17 underground collection bins, as reported by the Orlando Sentinel. The units are 11 feet deep and six cubic yards across, with modern-looking collection bins on top. These units can also be equipped with key card access to limit illegal dumping. They can be collected with a specially designed AutoCar truck that lifts them out of the ground and empties them from doors on the bottom. Underground Refuse Systems is the exclusive distributor of this system in the U.S. and is based in Kissimmee, where it is a client company of the University of […]

This article first appeared on Positively Osceola.   The City of Kissimmee along with Jay Wheeler, President of Underground Refuse Systems, presented an innovative way to overcome the challenge that so many cities and counties throughout the United States have to confront. Kissimmee is the first government agency to partner with Underground Refuse Systems, a local business that is part of the UCF Business Incubator located in downtown Kissimmee. Underground Refuse Systems is the first of its kind in the United States that utilizes underground trash containers that eliminate unwanted dumpster use, unsettling odors, and unsightly above ground storage of waste and unnecessary use of space.

This article first appeared on WFTV 9. OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. – People will no longer have to leave their trash at the curb to pick up in Kissimmee. The city launched its first underground waste containers Wednesday. The first one, for now, is located behind city hall. “It’s taken almost two and half years, but we are at this point and we are going to change the face of solid waste collection,” said Osceola County School Board member Jay Wheeler. Wheeler is also president of Underground Refuse Systems, the company that makes the trash system out of the UCF business incubator. Wheeler told Channel 9’s Jeff Levkulich the underground trash is to eliminate dumpster divers from humans and animals. “It’s […]

This article first appeared on Click Orlando. KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Dumpster divers, beware. Trash is going underground in Kissimmee. Officials on Wednesday are unveiling the city’s first underground waste containers. The goal is to eliminate dumpster divers, both human and animal. There will eventually be 17 underground trash containers throughout Osceola County. The underground containers measure about 6 cubic yards (5 meters) and are kept 11 feet (3.3 meters) underground. A mailbox-like receptacle above ground allows businesses or individuals to drop their trash into the underground containers. A custom truck empties the containers by lifting them out of the ground with a crane and emptying their contents into the truck. Kissimmee is the first municipality in the United States to sign […]