City of Albuquerque looks to catch up on backlog of needed trash bins
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) –Taking out the trash hasn't been so straightforward for some Albuquerque property owners since last summer. The city's struggled to swap out or fix up busted trash bins. 'We are a little over our general timeline, we like to get those bins out,' said Alex Bukoski, spokesman, City of Albuquerque Solid Waste Department.
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For the last year, Albuquerque's been slowly digging itself out of a backlog in replacing the trash bins. 'The supply chains still recovering from COVID, once they get backlogged hard to get back on track,' said Bukoski.
In the past, the city had two suppliers providing tens of thousands of new bins each year. But last fall, city councilors highlighted how long some are waiting for new bins. 'He said he'd been waiting a month for the trash can,' said Albuquerque City Councilor Klarissa Peña last year.
'I just wanted to ask if you could add my request for a bin as well, that I put in on July 29th,' said city councilor Nichole Rogers, last year.
Since then, the city has made some changes. 'Because of these issues that we've been dealing with our supply chain, we actually went and got a third supplier this year,' said Bukoski.
The city said it has around 600 requests for new trash and recycling bins waiting for a response this week. Usually, the Solid Waste Department gets more than a hundred new requests each day. They're waiting on roughly 4,000 more bins to get here in the next few weeks. 'When we get those new bins in, we can start to battle some of that backlog,' said Bukoski.
But the Solid Waste Department reminds people at home that if you've been waiting too long, call the city again because crews are supposed to respond to most calls in two to six weeks. 'Make sure that you're contacting 311, you're getting those status updates. We are doing our best to get those out there as soon as possible,' said Bukoski.
They also said that after someone calls 311, solid waste will always follow up with a call to get more details, like whether the bin should be repaired or replaced. 'We don't want anybody to have a broken trash can or a broken recycling bin. It's unacceptable, and we want to make sure we can fix it. But we also have to make sure we're managing our resources, managing our staffing,' said Bukoski.
The city said a home's first replacement bin is free, but any others will cost $51. That's about $10 less than the city pays for them.
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