Madison Park

The Yard Waste was skipped this week according to Ellen Price with the Solid Waste Services Charlotte, because they decided to focus all their staff and equipment into picking up trash, and recycling for some neighborhoods in the City of Charlotte due to forecast of snow,   Yard Waste became low priority and she said she was not certain they would get to it.  Appears that will be the case since the roads are so bad today.   They were planning to work Fridays pickups on Saturday due to Martin Luther King Day this past Monday, when no staff worked for the Holiday.   Everything was scheduled to be pushed back one day delay.   However on Wednesday they sent out a text to those on their receiving list stating those with Thursday and Friday pickups should put their can or cans out Wednesday evening, and leave them until picked up.  I know on my street they were able to late Thursday grab the even side of the street. (Which was their normal day for trash).  The odd side was picked up first thing Friday which was the correct date for MLK week.  No Yard Waste crews came as the city focused on getting everyone's trash and then recycling cans for those that were due this week. 

The county Solid Waste Full Service Centers had recently had to turn away commercial drops form some landscape /tree businesses because the yards were over loaded with material.  A lot of material is sent to SC for boiler fuel and their was work being done at those locations, and they were not taking the mulch for fuel.    That backed up the yards.   Those business were redirected to Compost Central or the Foxhole that were turned away due to being overloaded with material at the smaller sites.   

There are also issues with staffing and covid at Full Service Centers.   If things don't change they might have to temporarily shut down some sites to be able to continue to serve customers at the larger centers.  Hopefully that will not happen, but it is possible. 

This information was told during the Waste Management Advisory Board Meeting this past week by the Director of Solid Waste Jeffrey Smithberger.