LaFayette’s new garbage route days go into effect Feb. 1.
“We have continued to see a decline in the reliability of our garbage trucks as their age has increased,” said City Manager David Hamilton. “As we began evaluating the alternatives of repair, rebuild or replace, we identified a good opportunity for cost savings while improving the consistency in customer service of garbage pickup.”
Hamilton said the city currently runs two garbage truck routes concurrently on Tuesday and Thursday. This requires that the city maintain operation of both trucks at one time to ensure that garbage pickup occurs on the scheduled day.
“We’ve decided to move one of the Tuesday routes to Monday and one of the Thursday routes to Wednesday, in order to spread the demand on a garbage truck out,” he said. “This will allow us to have a backup garbage truck every day due to the fact that only one truck will be required to handle the day’s schedule. Ultimately, this will allow us to extend the useful life of our garbage trucks and delay the significant expenditure of a new garbage truck.”
Announcement of the change are being posted on each garbage can throughout the city, said Hamilton.
“The city will also have the second truck running a route for the first two to four weeks while customers adjust their habits to the new schedule to minimize the impact to customer service,” he added. “Thank you for your patience and willingness to change your weekly schedule as we tweak our operation to improve efficiency.”