By Kyle Roberts
City of Ruston employees will be returning to work as normal today while garbage pickup will be conducted as road conditions allow for residents within the city limits, according to Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker.
“The city will open up for business (today),” Walker said. “We will pick up as much trash as we can according to the condition of the roads. We will not be able to pick up outside the city limits.”
Employees that do not feel comfortable with the driving conditions for their respective commutes will be allowed to take PTO.
Residents will need to take their garbage cans to the road by 10 a.m. today and put them as close to the road as possible so trucks do not have to go on the edge of the roads.
Trash pickup will be conducted within the city limits, but only on roadways that are deemed safe for the trash trucks to drive.
“We’re actually going to have a pickup truck running in front of our garbage trucks to see if they can actually get down the road,” Walker said. “Trucks won’t be able to back track. We realize this is going to be a hit and miss, but it’s the only way we can start getting control of our situation.”
Recycling and trash will not be separated for today or tomorrow, but will still both be picked up. For residents that wish to keep their recycling separate, they will need to wait until next week to take their recycling to the road.
Garbage truck drivers will be using discretion while on the roads, which means that some roads and streets may not be entirely safe for total pickup. This could lead to some trash being picked up for some residents on a given road, while others may not have theirs picked up until Friday.
The City of Ruston will be aware of which garbage cans have not been picked up, meaning residents will not need to alert city hall and should leave their cans at the road.
Regular scheduled trash and recycling pickup is expected to resume next week including for residents outside of the city limits.
