TAMPA — The 136,000 Hillsborough County customers served by Waste Connections will see some curbside recycling service restored next week.
Beginning Monday, the company will pick-up residential recycling every other week. Waste Connections suspended recycling service June 24 because of a driver shortage attributed to COVID-19.
At one point, Waste Connections, one of three haulers serving the county, had 13 percent of its 208-employee local workforce out sick because of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus. To compensate, the county agreed to allow the company to suspend recycling service, but to maintain picking up trash two times a week.
Restoring recycling service to every other week is temporary, the county’s Solid Waste Management Division said in a released statement. Weekly service will resume once Waste Connections is able to return to its normal staffing levels.
Residents can check when their blue recycling cart is scheduled to be collected by visiting HCFLGov.net/WasteConnectionsRecycling.
Recycling carts placed curbside on the wrong day will be affixed with an orange sticker providing the web site and telephone number where customers can find their scheduled collection day.
The county encouraged residents with an excess of amount of recycling to drop it off at one of the community collection centers, or to dispose of it in regular gray garbage bins. The centers are open 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For locations, see the web site HCFLGov.net/trash and click on “find a waste disposal facility.”
