NEW ORLEANS — The City of New Orleans has activated its emergency debris removal contracts to assist with storm-related cleanup. The first of three comprehensive storm debris removal passes began on Tuesday, Sept. 7. Do not block roadways or place debris near trees, poles, or fire hydrants.
"There's going to be three passes where those trucks drive around picking up debris," said Deputy CAO of Infrastructure Ramsey Green. "This is probably going to exceed a month into the range of weeks to maybe months" to complete.
"There's a tremendous amount of debris throughout this city," he added. "Men and women from Parks and Parkway Sanitation DPW and our contracted firms are out there pushing that debris out of the right-of-way, and today is the first day we're picking it up and taking it away.
Please follow these guidelines:
- Debris must be placed between the sidewalk and the curb for removal by the City or its contractors.
- Avoid placement of storm debris waste under or on power lines, near trees, utility poles/boxes, fire hydrants, behind parked cars or on neutral grounds.
- Only debris resulting from Hurricane Ida is eligible for removal by the City’s emergency debris removal contractors.
- Any work done by contractors is ineligible for debris removal services by the City or its contractors.
- Commercial properties and properties serviced by private trash contracts are ineligible to receive bulk waste collection or debris removal services by the City or its contractors.
- Separate debris into the following categories:
- HOUSEHOLD GARBAGE
Bagged garbage, discarded food, paper, packaging, and other household waste. (Use City-issued trash cart when possible). Regular trash pickup schedules are suspended, and instead, crews will collect garbage as soon as they can.
CONSTRUCTION DEBRIS
Building materials, drywall, lumber, carpet, furniture, etc.
UNBAGGED VEGETATIVE DEBRIS
Logs, leaves, tree branches, plants.
APPLIANCES
Doors must be sealed/secured.
- HOUSEHOLD GARBAGE
Officials say pickup will be ongoing seven days a week, roughly from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you missed the first pass, you can set debris out for it to be collected in the second or third pass.
Green said on Tuesday that he had two messages he wanted to get out to the public, specifically for normal trash collection.
"Number one, all of your household waste -- the stuff that's putrid, rotting, liquid -- put that into your 95-gallon city can," Green said.
Secondly, "We are no longer talking about normal service operations. So if you're a Thursday pickup or a Friday pickup, just disregard it because we're picking it up as quickly and as rapidly as we can, given limited staffing [and] limited power to our trash operators. Put it all in your can, put it out on your curb and we're working to get it."