It’s a moment county residents have been waiting for — some with optimism, others with dread. At tonight’s meeting of the Lauderdale County Board of Supervisors, the board is expected to make the first of at least two votes needed to switch to curbside garbage pick-up.

Currently, county residents outside the city use the so called green-box system to dispose of their waste, driving to dumpster sites to drop off their trash. But the county’s solid waste committee has been looking at a possible switch to curbside garbage pick-up. The committee consists of Road Manager Neal Carson, District 1 Supervisor Hank Florey, and District 3 Supervisor Craig Hitt.

According to Hitt, the committee will ask the board tonight to make a vote that would move the county toward changing that system.

“We’ll recommend that the board proceed with establishing a contract (with a sanitation company for roadside pick-up),” he said. “There will have to be another vote to accept the contract later.”

If the board votes to follow the committee’s recommendations, Carson will work with the county’s law firm to create a contract with one of the sanitation companies that has expressed interest in picking up the county’s trash.

The board must approve a contract before they actually make the switch to roadside pick-up, so even if they vote to follow the committee’s recommendations tonight, the switch will not be set in stone yet.

The committee has studied bids made several months ago by various waste disposal companies. The lowest of those bidders was Arrow disposal, at $9.10 a month per resident. According to Carson, no matter how the board votes, county residents will continue to pay $100 a year plus four mills for garbage disposal.

The county’s sanitation fund is currently about $1.3 million in the red, but until last year, county residents paid only $60 a year for garbage disposal instead of $100 a year, and many residents, such as the disabled, were exempt from garbage fees.

Carson said that, because the board raised the yearly fee and rescinded exemptions, the county could continue with the current system or change to roadside pick-up without incurring more sanitation debt either way.

The change, if made, will only affect those county residents living outside of the city limits.

The board of supervisors will meet tonight at 5 p.m. on the first floor of the Raymond P. Davis county annex building on Fourth Street and 21st Avenue.