If you recently got a postcard from Republic Services saying that your collection day is changing, you’re in good company. Nearly 50% of the City’s residential routes have shifted to a new day of the week. Wondering why?
Garbage and recycling collection is a finely tuned operation. Haulers, like Republic Services, meticulously analyze all sorts of data to ensure that they’re working efficiently. This includes route metrics, such as the number of homes to collect from each day, tons of materials collected on each route, and distance to transfer sites (the first stop for Tualatin’s materials is to WRI in Wilsonville). Other factors like traffic patterns and upcoming urban development are also important considerations when planning (or reconsidering) collection routes.
The main goals for a re-route are to maximize efficiency. By revisiting how, when, and where collection is offered each day, haulers are able to minimize fuel consumption and reduce carbon emissions (great news for Tualatin’s Climate Action Plan), reduce travel time and streamline operations (great news for Republic’s drivers and operations team), and meet customer needs (great news if you accidently forget to set out your bins).
Here in Tualatin, garbage, recycling, and yard debris/organics collection is happening all around the city, six days per week. That is a lot to consider and coordinate! Doing a city-wide reroute is a lengthy and labor-intensive undertaking, so we can feel confident that a lot of information was gathered in order to make sure that our new collection days were the right days.
One additional note – The City has worked with our street sweeping service to make sure that garbage days and sweeping days don’t conflict. However, if your new garbage day falls on the day before your street sweeping day, please make sure all roll-carts and bins are removed from the street by 6:00am to clear the way for the sweeper. Visit www.tualatin.gov/publicworks for more info about street sweeping.
As always, if you have questions about your garbage service, give Republic Services a call at 503-981-1278.
