Metro Service Group, a contractor obligated to service more than 65,000 customers in New Orleans, faces the most trouble addressing the situation. The company blames a nationwide worker shortage during the coronavirus pandemic for the lack of sanitation workers, specifically drivers. The issue, it says, is further compounded by Hurricane Ida’s scattering New Orleans workers outside the city.
"There’s lots of people working in the administration and having one person here to answer question doesn’t seem that difficult," said New Orleans City Council member Joseph Giarrusso.NBC News reached out to the mayor's office for comment regarding its absence from the meeting but did not receive a response.
“People are in their homes: Air conditioning works, power is there, and this is the last problem,” said Green, who has also taken to the streets to help pick up trash. “It is a bad problem. I myself was picking up dated and disgusting trash, but we’re picking it up, and we’re going to get it solved. We’re throwing every resource that we can at resolving this problem in both the immediate short term and in the long term.
Greg Beuerman, a spokesman for Woods and Metro, said Monday he only knew the status of trash pickup as of Thursday afternoon, and he wasn’t sure whether the company’s owner had misunderstood some data, had misspoken or had different information when he spoke at the council meeting. The survey asked respondents to share their addresses if their garbage hasn’t been picked up. Sixty percent of the 1,300 respondents said that from Wednesday to Sunday, their trash hadn’t been picked up. Many of those still waiting for the refuse outside their doors to be removed are allegedlyAdams said the review is limited by having been conducted on social media, but he said it appears to contradict Woods’ account.
“We’ve reached out to several of the biggest operators in this country, and those conversations have continued, but those conversations are unhelpful as trash piles up in the street,” Green said. The employee also confirmed that there is so much garbage that the trucks are filled after as few as five streets, forcing them to drive 45 minutes or more to the landfill. It’s also not uncommon for the trucks to break down, which brings the entire operation to a stop.
In a hearing Friday, City Council member Giarrusso suggested that, if labor is an issue, Woods should consider paying his workers more — especially because the city has said “money was no object” in contending with the trash problem.
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