Worker shortage, Christmas trees slow Bradenton’s trash pickup. Here’s the schedule
While the city of Bradenton works on improving benefits for sanitation employees, an alternate schedule remains in place for yard waste and recycling pickup.
Regular trash pickup will still be picked up twice a week, but yard waste and recycling will only get picked up once every other week. For example, yard waste and tree clippings will be picked up during the first week of January. Recycling will be picked up in the second week of January.
The city first switched to the alternating pickup schedule in July, citing the continued departure of garbage truck drivers. The Solid Waste Division is meant to operate with 51 employees overall, but on Wednesday, only 28 employees were available, according to Jeannie Roberts, Bradenton’s public information officer.
Roberts urged residents to remain patient as workers continue to tackle parts of the city that are running behind on trash, recycling or yard waste pickup. Because workers are collecting Christmas trees, the collection trucks fill up faster and have to be emptied more often, leading to even more delays.
“We just want people to know that we are behind and are doing our best to catch up,” Roberts wrote in an email to the Bradenton Herald.
Bradenton has been plagued by the same driver shortages that are affecting the rest of the nation. Drivers that are licensed to operate the heavy-duty garbage trucks are in high demand, with better-paying jobs available in the private sector, city officials say.
Last month, City Administrator Rob Perry presented a plan to the Bradenton City Council, offering to increase the pay rate for all sanitation workers in order to compete with outside job offers.
Perry’s latest proposal is on top of an incentive program that Bradenton approved in August, which rewarded licensed employees with up to $2,000 for keeping their job with the city.
In the meantime, Bradenton’s recycling and yard waste pickup will follow this schedule in January:
Jan. 3 to 7: Yard waste collection, no recycling collection
Jan. 10 to 14: Recycling collection, no yard waste collection
Jan. 17 to 21: Yard waste collection, no recycling collection
Jan. 24 to 28: Recycling collection, no yard waste collection
