Changes are coming to trash day next week

Don’t forget — changes are coming to how the city of Santa Fe collects residential trash and recycling. The changes will take effect Monday, with the city moving to a four-day schedule for trash and recycling collection. On the fifth day, the trucks will rest — that is, be maintained, washed and otherwise cared for to keep them productive longer.

What this means for residents is that it is very likely the day they put out their trash will change.

According to the Environmental Services Division, almost all residents who now have their trash collected Friday will move to Thursday. Most other residential customers will have a different collection day as well. Trash and recycling still will go out at 7 a.m. Using the interactive map at tinyurl. com/9k6c9xb7, residents can type in their address and get their trash collection day.

What’s also new is that residential trash and recycling won’t be collected anymore on holidays. Come Labor Day in a few weeks, the Monday trash pickup won’t happen. Instead, Monday trash will be collected on Tuesday and Tuesday on Wednesday and so on.

It’s less complicated for a holiday that falls, say, on a Thursday. Then the Thursday route will be picked up Friday. For helping keeping track, the Environmental Services Division has an app, Recycle Coach, with the schedule.

The new schedules were necessary to help keep up with growth and balance routes. That way, operators don’t have too many stops on one route and too few on another, depending on the day of the week.

The city partnered with Rubicon SmartCity to develop optimal routes across Santa Fe. The company uses a cloud-based GPS and ticketing system for city trucks, tracking them on routes. For four years, the system collected such data as the amount of time a route takes to complete, scheduled and actual stops, and how many trips each truck needed to take to empty their load at the landfill.

With data in hand, the Rubicon team simulated routes, and eventually environmental service leaders decided a four-day schedule would get the work done more efficiently while providing other advantages.

Chief among them is setting aside Fridays to maintain trucks more consistently. The new schedule also promises to reduce overtime. Drivers also will get a three-day weekend, which could help retain them in a market where holders of commercial driver’s licenses are in high demand.

A four-day schedule also will reduce how much gasoline is used, both by city trucks and drivers commuting to work. Even better, the residential drivers have supported the changes — especially not having to drive a route on Christmas and Thanksgiving.

As with anything new, the system will take getting used to, especially for longtime residents used to placing their trash and recycling bins out on a certain day. It’s a new day, at least when it comes to trash and recycling.