New Solid Waste director outlines fixes for route, fleet and recycling delays

Houston’s Service Delivery Committee heard a detailed status update July 23 from the newly confirmed director of the Solid Waste Management Department on steps to address persistent collection delays, aging trucks and a high recycling contamination rate.

Director Hassan told the committee she reviewed operations during her first 90 days and immediately formed a three-person administration team to process service requests and customer inquiries that had accumulated in the 311 queue. “The first thing I wanted to do was come in and get a gauge on our employees, the morale, how we were performing, what we can do to improve, and what we can do to deliver quality service to the city,” Hassan said.

Hassan said the department serves roughly 400,000 homes with about 389 employees and an annual operating budget of about $101,000,000. She reported garbage collection was “on schedule” but recycling was two to four days behind, heavy trash about two weeks behind and yard waste being collected along with heavy trash.

To reduce pockets of missed service she described a route rebalancing plan. The goal is to reduce most routes toward an operational target of about 950 homes per route; many routes previously served more than 1,300 homes. Hassan said the department…