NEW ORLEANS — There is no denying that trash pickup in parts of New Orleans has been at times as rotten as two-week-old garbage.
Metro Service Group currently picks up in the city’s Service Area 2, north of I-10 from the Jefferson Parish line to the lake in the east.
The waste hauler has filed for bankruptcy protection, claiming their contract doesn’t accurately reflect the number of homes they service, and that the city hasn't paid them for the extra tonnage picked up during the pandemic.
Metro owner Jimmie woods talked about the filing this week on WBOK radio.
“To this day we have not received one additional penny for the waste that was collected since the beginning of the pandemic,” Woods told the radio station. “It was very impractical… to have that increase in volume without any additional compensation.”
The city rebid Metro’s contract when the company was unable to consistently collect trash on time.
Metro’s bankruptcy filing automatically forbids the city from terminating the company's contract, at least for now.
Thursday, the city council budget committee pressed pause on funding the new trash contacts.
“I’m getting closer to wanting to know what the bankruptcy judge is telling us to do rather than taking action,” Budget Committee Chair Joe Giarrusso said.
Waste Pro and IV Waste were expected to take over for Metro on November 7.
City Sanitation Director Matt Torri told the council the city still needs to be in a position to pay the new vendors.
“The city is still moving forward toward November 7, and we need to be ready to take action should that happen,” Torre said.
Council VP J.P. Morrell also objected to a plan to transfer 2.5 million in surplus dollars from the police department to fund the new contracts through the end of the year.
“As we are trying to ensure residents that all existing resources are being used to address and fight crime, taking money out of the police department’s budget to fund sanitation could be interpreted very poorly by our constituents, by the public,” Morrell said.
IV Waste owner Sidney Torres says he would be worried about his pending contract if he wasn’t already picking up 45 percent of Metro’s route.
“When you look at what’s going on with the bankruptcy, it’s going to be up to the judge and what she decides to do with that, but as far as we’re concerned, we’re moving forward with the November start date,” Torres said.
City spokesman John Lawson in a statement said, “Our priority here is to ensure that no Service Area 2 solid waste collection services are interrupted in any way.”
The next hearing in bankruptcy court is now set for November 23.
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