Many residents in Fort Wayne will have new garbage and recycling pickup days beginning Monday, November 5, as city and neighborhood officials seek solutions for the city’s troubled garbage collection.
The change comes at the recommendation of the Mayor’s Working Group on Garbage and Recycling, which he formed in August. The group determined that existing routes for garbage and recycling were convoluted, and that Red River Waste Solutions would be able to provide more efficient service with redrawn maps.
As a result, 47 percent of Fort Wayne residents will see changes to their garbage or recycling date, or both, starting November 5. To find more information about your new pickup day, details are now available at MyNewTrashDay.com.
Third district councilman Tom Didier is one of the members of the working group, saying he wants to play a positive role in finding solutions.
“I’m no logistics expert, but I could pretty much tell from the map that we had here that this was really convoluted and majorly needed to be fixed,” said Didier.
Adrienne Maurer is a resident and also a member of the group, representing the Illsley Place neighborhood. She says at first, she wanted to see Red River face consequences for the challenges throughout the year, but quickly came to understand them.
“It’s not one thing that’s causing delays; it’s a whole series of aspects in the whole business process of garbage collection,” Maurer said. “It’s hiring the drivers, it’s training the drivers, it’s the equipment, and certainly the route is a big part of it.”
Indeed, Red River has attributed many of its woes to a national shortage of certified drivers, equipment failures in inclement winter weather and routes over the last year. Vice president of business development and governmental affairs Steve Smith says the company’s goal now is to get the word out and minimize the impact of any change in a resident’s pickup days.
To get the word out, residents can expect postcards to be sent out with more details in the next two weeks. You can also find a rendering of the new pickup maps on this story at wboi.org.
