Marion adjusting trash pickup schedule

Marion adjusting trash pickup schedule

New truck will alter city’s sanitation rotation

news@theeveningtimes.com

Marion’s new automated garbage truck is in and the city is now working to get its pick up route down to just one truck.

“When (former Street Department Director) Maxie (Keith) and you all decided to go to an automated truck system, we talked about running one truck for the whole city,” Street Department Director Gordon Floyd said. “We are close to that now. It’s running a lot quicker.”

The city traded in its 20yard Freightliner garbage truck which it purchased in 2013 for a new 2016 truck. Floyd said the new truck should also save the city money on manpower.

The city currently has two drivers who are working about 10 to 11 hours a day and rotate days on.

Floyd said Marion will still have to run a second non-automated truck on Wednesdays to pick up garbage for handicapped residents who can’t bring their trash to the curb, the “dollhouses” and for the city’s apartment complexes. “The apartments have no room for residents to put their garbage out for the automated truck,” Floyd said.

“And the dollhouses are so close together and people park on the street so it’s really hard to get in there.”

Floyd said with the new truck needing only one driver he will move two of the workers in the sanita- tion department to the street department.

“It will make the sanitation department budget go down,” Floyd said. “And with the cost of the landfill going up, we need all the help we can get there. And we can always use the extra manpower in the street department. So nobody will lose their job.”

By Mark Randall