Trash pickup delays occurring throughout the city
As many of you might have noticed, major trash pickup delays have been occurring lately.
Since many of the trash trucks in the city double as snow plows in the winter, many of the trucks are now either awaiting repair, or have been scrapped due to the winter conditions the city has experienced over the past few years.
With many of the regular trash trucks out of commission currently, trash pickups have been extremely delayed in certain neighborhoods. For example, this South Philly resident reported an eight day delay in trash pickup:
Trash pick-up is now 8 days late in south philly. What gives? Safe to say the snow storm is over! @philly311 @PhilaStreets @PassyunkPost — Corey Crawford (@cnc521) March 13, 2015
While the delays are quite frustrating, the Streets Department released a statement saying that residents should continue putting their trash out on their scheduled trash days. More from the Streets Department’s statement:
Residents are asked to continue placing their trash out on the regular scheduled day at the normal location as delays are expected to continue for the next several weeks. Materials not collected on the scheduled day will be picked up the following day. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank residents for their cooperation. Streets Department crews are diligently working to ensure that trash is collected. Citizens can visit our website at www.philadelphiastreets.com to stay updated on trash and recycling collections. Also follow @PhilaStreets on Twitter and Facebook. In addition, residents can register their cell phones and e-mail addresses with the department at http://www.philadelphiastreets.com/customer-service/streets-alerts/ to receive real-time messages concerning departmental services, vital information and news.
Have you been experiencing trash pickup delays in your neighborhood?
Recycling wasn’t collected on my block so I alerted the City via the 311 app/website. Streets claimed they inspected the location and didn’t find an issue. Complete conversation here.
https://iframe.publicstuff.com/#/?client_id=242&request_id=761666#request-show
From personal experience, using the 311 app is useless. I have had them tell me they “didn’t see the problem” or that “it has been corrected” and then go home to find nothing changed. It would be nice if the app worked, but the impersonal passive-aggressive nature of it allows them to respond in kind by not doing anything and lying about it.
That wasn’t actually an 8 day delay. Trash pickup was cancelled on March 5 (I think that was the date) due to the snowstorm. The notice was posted on the Sanitation Department website, but how many people actually think to check that? I only knew when a friend told me.
Trash pickup the next week was delayed by a day however, and might have also been because of the excess trash left over from the previous week.
The Streets department has been running a day or two behind for the past few months yet if you put your trash out an hour early the city will issue you a ticket.