NEW ORLEANS — Two new trash contractors are now preparing to take over garbage pickup in a large swath of New Orleans. IV Waste is already receiving new garbage trucks, gearing up for November 7.
That’s when the company owned by businessman Sidney Torres takes over collections north of I-10 from the Jefferson Parish line to the Industrial Canal.
“We’ve already started training the drivers, training the helpers in the back of the truck and our team is ready to go,” Torres said. “It’s a big deal to take on something this size. You’re talking about 45,000 homes.”
A second company, Waste Pro, will be picking up in New Orleans East and the Lower Ninth Ward. The new contracts call for once-a-week trash pickup with recycling.
Larger families will be able to get a second 95-gallon cart. For now, the city sanitation fee will remain at $24 dollars per month per household.
“In the grand scheme of things, we think that’s going to be the best approach for the city and for residents alike,” New Orleans Sanitation Director Matt Torri said.
“I think we’re going to see a significant increase in service quality to the residents and I think it’s going to be really palpable to them as well.”
Torri says the new contacts also require garbage vendors to have certain equipment and technology upgrades on their trucks.
“The new collection contracts as we’ve talked a lot about have a tremendous amount of enhancements when it comes to the resources that are available both in equipment, the types of equipment, the quantities of equipment, the resources that are going to be in our streets.”
There are also strict safeguards to hold the companies accountable.
“Whether it’s a missed collection, a late collection or not providing carts or repairing carts within the prescribed timeframe there’s very clear guidelines,” Torri said.
IV Waste is installing on board cameras and GPS tracking on all of its trucks. They will be monitored by a state-of-the-art dispatch center at the company’s Mid City headquarters.
“We outfit each truck with cameras all the way around and also inside the cab, so if there’s a missed pickup or somebody said they didn’t put their can out, we can go back on the GPS and see was the can out or did we pass it up, did we not get it,” Sidney Torres said.
Torres admits given what homeowners have been through of the last couple of years in terms of unreliable trash pickup, IV Waste has a lot to prove to restore customer confidence.
“We will pick it up on the day that it’s supposed to be picked up,” he said. “It is a lot of pressure and I’m not going to tell you I haven’t thought about it a lot and think about it every day.”
The city is paying a significant premium for the new garbage contracts, an increase of $8.6 million a year over the current contract held by Metro Disposal.
Matt Torri is now scheduled to update the New Orleans City Council Public Works Committee on the new garbage contracts next Thursday.