Waste Management of Nevada is still trying to pick up trash cans, despite slick roads and tall snow berms in Northern Nevada, though they say it is a challenge, and some neighbors might come home to full trash bins.
Route supervisor Nathan Combs answered some common snow-day trash pick-up questions for 2 News Nevada:
Reporter: What do customers need to know if their trash was not picked up?
Nathan Combs: For customers that are impacted, we have a number of bins setup throughout the county in certain areas to help alleviate some of the heartache that comes with not being serviced.
If your trash truck did not come you’ll be getting a notification as well as a recovery plan. In the event that that plan is next service day, the drivers will pick up additional unstickered excess waste bags for free due to the inconvenience.
I’d like to encourage every customer to get online and make sure that their email addresses and phone numbers are up-to-date so that they can get those communications.
Click here to visit the website for Waste Management in Washoe County.
Reporter: How can residents help make sure their trash gets picked up?
Nathan Combs: Put your trash cans in front of the snow berms. There are a lot of cases where customers place their cans out for service, and a plow comes by and creates a three-foot snow berm in front of it, and our drivers simply can’t reach it.
Try to bring the cans to where we can get to them. That could mean walking them down the street. You can put your trash can anywhere on Washoe County roadways.
Our drivers can be out on route upwards of 6, 7 o’clock at night, so I encourage everybody to leave their cans out until after 7 o’clock before bringing them in because the driver may come by later than usual.
Reporter: What challenges do garbage truck drivers face picking up trash on snow days?
Nathan Combs: The challenges that they bring for the drivers are primarily traction. That’s what prevents a lot of our drivers from being able to service certain areas. Every driver leaves this yard with the expectation of servicing every single customer. It’s not until they arrive on-site where they determine whether it’s safe to operate or not. We try to get as many as we can, safely.
Today for example, alone, out of 54 residential routes, six of our trucks have become stuck, three of which required a tow truck, and the average wait time is around 120 minutes for a tow truck to recover that vehicle.
Combs’ answers are edited for clarity and grammar.
