NEW ORLEANS — After months of trash complaints aimed at Richard's Disposal from residents in service areas 1 and 4, the city of New Orleans is making an effort to solve the problem.
City leaders met Monday with IV Waste and Waste Pro, they determined the two trash providers will begin picking up trash in those areas today. This includes Algiers, Mid-City, Uptown, and upriver neighborhoods.
This now means IV Waste and Waste Pro will pick up trash for just about the entire city of New Orleans, after taking over the contract once held by Metro Waste at the end of last year.
IV Waste officials said they will deploy three trucks to the areas bounded by: Tchoupitoulas street, Napoleon, Jefferson, and St. Charles avenues. Waste Pro officials said their company will take two of Richard's routes each day, for six days a week.
Meanwhile, Richards is pulling crews from Baton Rouge and Jackson, Mississippi to address the backlog.
On Sunday, the trash company said its crews worked over 500-man hours.
Alvin Richards, owner of Richards Disposal issued a statement late last night, in which he said, "We've made substantial progress and expect to be current on all routes in the coming days and we look forward to working cooperatively with the city council, mayor and all of city government to address the market conditions and other circumstances that affect timely trash collection."
However, he did not comment on the city's recent decision to bring in IV Waste and Waste Pro to cover some of the company's routes. The company has stated a lack of manpower as the reason why they have fallen behind on trash collection.
Right now, it's unclear how long the IV Waste and Waste Pro will be operating on Richards routes. The City of New Orleans has Richards under contract until March 2024, but that contract could be terminated if the city sees fit. City leaders do plan to meet with Richards today to work towards a solution.
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