Here’s why picking up your yard waste in Charlotte is taking even longer than expected
A Charlotte-wide one-time pickup of yard waste is going slow, the city says, due to a heavy backlog for demand and recent severe weather.
The city’s solid-waste department began the process Monday, to catch up after pickups were suspended for a month during Mecklenburg County and North Carolina stay-at-home orders.
City officials anticipated this taking more than a week, but the large amount of yard waste being placed at curbs has slowed the process even further.
“During collection this week we have seen more than three times the amount of yard waste that we normally see,” Brandi Williams, with the city’s solid waste department, said in an email. “This has significantly reduced the pace by which we can collect yard waste.”
The city did not provide specifics on which neighborhoods have been serviced or a schedule for when remaining neighborhoods would be handled.
Williams said via email that 38,796 Charlotte homes received yard-waste pickup this week. That was about 17% of the routes solid-waste would collect weekly under normal circumstances.
Williams said that while the city hopes to maintain that level of pickup, severe weather and the amount of yard waste left out for pickup affects the schedule. The city’s yard-waste pickup will include Saturdays.
Williams advises residents to leave yard waste at the curb for as long as it takes to be collected, and that every home will receive at least one collection in this process.
Charlotte had several severe storms in the last month, including one April 25 that included hail and a strong winds. Those storms brought down tree limbs and other debris that added to the backlog of yard waste.
The city has also taken COVID-19 precautions for staff picking up waste: Workers now wear personal protective equipment, have their temperatures checked daily and physically distance as much as possible while doing their jobs.
The city has maintained weekly garbage and recycling pickup during the pandemic. Williams said the city is looking for methods to resume yard-waste pickup on a regular basis.
This story was originally published May 1, 2020 at 3:55 PM.
