February is here. With it will come Super Bowl parties with beer and soda cans a plenty, and just a few days later Valentine’s Day will follow with wine bottles and candy in plastic boxes. As they walk to their back alleys, Baltimoreans may wonder, “Where is that weekly recycling we were promised?”
The answer is familiar: it’s on the way. Now, the mayor’s office feels confident that weekly recycling will resume the first full week of March, said a spokesperson.
For years now, the city has been waiting on an order of new recycling trucks but issues with the supply chain have dramatically slowed down the process.
Bryan Doherty, the mayor’s director of communications, confirmed that the city has received 13 new trucks to add to the existing fleet. Staffing has remained another challenge. Since July, the city’s Solid Waste division has brought staff vacancies down from 15% to under 9% by hiring or promoting 35 new drivers and hiring 74 new solid waste workers.
“We didn’t want to just get back to weekly recycling, we wanted to make sure that it was sustainable,” said Doherty.
Now that the trucks are finally within the city’s possession (the order was placed in 2021) there are a few customizations that need to be done. That includes a few “retrofits” to make the trucks a bit narrower to fit through the city’s narrow, pre-automobile alleyways.
Doherty also said the Department of Public Works has been looking at route optimization for its recycling teams. Currently, crews make about 2600 stops and with the new routes that number will be down around 1800.
“The delivery of these vehicles is a solid next step in finally getting us to return to weekly recycling pickup. Our teams at DGS and DPW are working nonstop to get these trucks road-ready, ensure that crews are ready to go, and complete testing of the updated routes. We still have a few steps to go, but I’m confident that we’re now on track to return to weekly recycling the first full week of March,” said Mayor Brandon Scott in an emailed statement.
The projected date is still within the projected timespan that the administration has been giving for months. In his April State of the City address Mayor Brandon Scott promised weekly recycling service would resume within the first quarter of 2024 — if recycling goes operational early next month the mayor will meet that promise.
This article may be updated
