Garbage and recyclables pile up as omicron takes its toll
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The omicron variant is sickening so many sanitation workers around the U.S. that some cities have had to delay or suspend garbage or recycling pickup, angering residents shocked that governments can’t perform this most basic of functions.
The slowdowns have caused recycling bins full of Christmas gift boxes and wrapping paper to languish on Nashville curbs, trash bags to pile up on Philadelphia streets, and uncollected yard waste — grass clippings, leaves, branches — to block sidewalks in Atlanta.
“It’s just a shame,” said Madelyn Rubin, who lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where officials have halted recycling.
“You know that they could find the money to do it if they wanted to,” she said. “If it was a business that wanted to come in here, they would dump money in to make it happen.”
Cities including Atlanta, Nashville and Louisville are so shorthanded they have temporarily stopped collecting things like recyclable bottles, cans, paper and plastic, yard waste or oversized junk to focus on the grosser, smellier stuff. The delays are more than an annoyance to residents, creating problems such as clogged storm drains and blocked sidewalks.
Nashville City Council member Freddie O’Connell was just as surprised as his constituents when he received notice before Christmas that the city was halting curbside recycling.
“I was just stunned there wasn’t an alternative or a backup plan,” he said. “No hotline for people who are mobility impaired or don’t have reliable access to a car” to carry their recyclables to a central drop-off site. In Nashville, staffing shortages exacerbated a problem that includes not enough working garbage trucks and a contract with a bankrupt private trash collector.
“It feels like a failure of governance,” he added.
The garbage crisis is actually the third of the pandemic. The first happened in the spring of 2020, when COVID-19 took hold in the U.S. Problems arose again as the delta variant spiked over the summer.
The Solid Waste Association of North America warned government officials and trash haulers in December to “plan now for staffing shortages.”
The highly contagious variant hit just when Americans were generating a lot of trash — over the Christmas holidays. Combine that with a relatively low vaccination level among front-line sanitation workers and you have a “perfect storm for delayed collection,” the association’s executive director, David Biderman, said this week.
In some communities, up to a quarter of the waste-collection workforce is calling in sick, Biderman said.
Garbage collection has become just another of the many basic services disrupted by omicron. Around the U.S., teachers, firefighters, police officers and transit workers have been out sick in large numbers.
“We’re getting calls, emails, everything. People are understandably frustrated,” said Atlanta City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari.
Atlanta officials said Monday that because of the worker shortage, recycling and yard waste will be picked up “as staffing allows.”