In mid-July, Mayor Sharon Weston Broome announced that complaints of missed garbage and recycling collections in Baton Rouge dropped 57% in the month since the city-parish sanitation contractor, Republic Services, laid out an action plan to address issues with its services.
Republic’s plan, unveiled in June, included the addition of trucks, drivers and training to enhance performance, following a spate of problems that had plagued the company for months.
But while service has improved, Metro Council members say they continue to spend hours a day fielding calls from constituents, who complain about missed collections.
“The problem has not been solved,” says Metro Council member Barbara Freiberg, who is currently running for state representative. “I barely have time to campaign because I’m dealing with so many calls about trash and pickup.”
Assistant Chief Administrative Officer Kelvin Hill acknowledges the city is still dealing with collection issues. But unlike earlier this year, when the main culprit was a lack of drivers at Republic, the more recent problems have to do with an increase in woody waste, exacerbated after Hurricane Barry.
“Barry added to the volume of debris so the trucks have been filling up faster,” Hill says. “As a result, the trucks are not able to complete their routes on the scheduled day.”
Unlike twice-weekly garbage collection, woody waste is only picked up once a week, so residents, whose woody waste is not collected on its scheduled day, have had to wait until the following week.
To help out with the added workload, the city has contracted with debris contractor DRC. The Metro Council recently allocated $1.6 million to cover the cost, though Hill says the volume of woody waste from the storm, which caused far less damage in Baton Rouge than predicted, is about half of what was originally estimated.
“It looks like we’ll only be spending about $800,000 of the total amount,” he says. “So it won’t be nearly as expensive as we thought it would.”
Hill also says council members like Freiberg and her constituents should soon see improvements to service. He says woody waste debris generated by the mid-July storm should be completed in the next two weeks. At the same time, Republic continues to put new trucks and drivers on the road.
