City of Cibolo issued the following announcement on March 25
Garbage routes have been running longer than normal, and additional trucks have been added to help alleviate the extended route times. Garbage must be at the curb by 7am due to these changes. This is being attributed to the changing social conditions associated with our response to COVID-19 - many adults now working from home and our children being at home while our school system is closed. To ensure the household waste was being collected in each area of our city, Republic stated they were going to limit the amount of yard waste being picked up.
City staff reached out to the Republic Services management team to explore what was occurring and what could be done to remediate the issue. Large numbers of bagged leaves and other lawn waste were taking up more space in the trucks than usual. This level of lawn waste combined with the sharp increase of household waste was overwhelming their ability to pick up all of the waste. Their response to limit the lawn waste picked up was not related to an increased threat to the health of their employees, but only a reaction to the great increase in waste volume. The routes in Cibolo are designed so a truck driver does not work more than 12 hours in a day, as regulated by the USDOT. The increase of total waste generated per home was filling the trucks faster than normal, which necessitates they travel to the landfill to be emptied. This time away from the route was extending the workday beyond the 12-hour limit. Their decision was to pick up the garbage first, then pickup the lawn waste as capacity and time allowed.
The City of Cibolo will be limiting the amount of lawn waste to be picked up to 1 (one) bag per collection day per home. This will begin on March 30th – until April 15th – in an effort to ensure the garbage for every household is picked up each pickup day.
Spring Clean Up dates have been changed to May 1-3 and May 8-10. The hazardous waste portion of the event is cancelled until the fall clean up due to scheduling issues.
Original source can be found here.
Source: City of Cibolo