Sometimes the morning round-up is messy. Like when you’ve got two trash stories to share.
Paul Grondahl at the Times Union takes a look at the people behind the trash, with his profile of the workers at Albany's Rapp Road landfill:
"I won't kid you. It's a tough job," said Corey D. Johnson, an Albany sanitation and recycling supervisor who spent eight years riding the back of a truck. "People put out their trash and just assume that it magically disappears." Johnson has the cut and definition of a weight lifter. "Picking trash is definitely a good workout," he said. He dispatches a dozen trucks to routes around the city, with a typical ratio of eight for trash and four for recycling. Each trash truck picks up about 13 tons in the summer, up from 10 tons in the winter. But the load has gotten lighter. Five years ago, each truck picked up 18 tons of garbage. Now a recycling truck collects about 3 tons in the summer, a half-ton more than on a winter's day. Two men work opposite sides of the street, while the driver makes several hundred stops on an eight-hour shift.
Meanwhile it's the animals, not the people, that residents near an Apalachin recycling plant are concerned about. Debbie Swartz writes in the Press & Sun-Bulletin that the facility wants to expand, close to a conservation center and animal refuge. If permission to expand were granted, the move would create 10 to 15 new jobs;
Neighbors said they want to see the facility built further away from Hilton Road, on the west side of the company's property. "We're not saying don't build it," neighbor Anne Roma said. "We're saying, you've got 32 acres. Move it to the other side ..."
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