BATON ROUGE, LA — July 22, 2019 — Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome announced today improvements and process changes to City-Parish garbage and recycling services, following the implementation of an improvement plan announced last month by the Mayor’s Office and Republic Services.

On June 19, Mayor-President Broome and Republic Services officials held a joint news conference announcing an improvement plan for garbage collection across the parish. As a result of the implementation of the Improvement Plan, over the past month the following enhancements have been realized:

• Missed garbage and recycling call rate has reduced by 57%
• Total routes with missed pick-ups has reduced by 70%

“Today’s announcement of improvements in pickup services for our taxpaying citizens does not halt our drive to continuously improve our garbage and recycling services,” said Mayor-President Broome. “Anytime there’s an issue within a given process, you dig in to root out the causes and address them. Honoring my administration’s commitment to improving core government services is part of the greater vision of policies and practices that enhance the quality of life in East Baton Rouge Parish.”

In addition to the overall improvements, the following service areas have seen enhancements:

Driver Improvements:

• 10 new drivers have been hired and are picking up on routes.
• 10 new additional drivers are being recruited for East Baton Rouge Parish.
• 10 new maintenance crew members are being recruited.
• Working with Metro-Council members to participate in Job Fairs across four Metro Council Districts.
• Drivers are being held accountable for their route performance.

Process Changes:

• Republic now has direct access to the City-Parish 311 Q-Alert system.
• Quick-action response team are being deployed.
• 311 Data has aided resolving service issues.
• Route changes have been designed and will be implemented August 19th — combining recycling, out-of-cart, and hand-pile pickup on the same day for efficiencies.
• Sub-contracted with DRC to “catch-up” on yard waste & bulky pick-ups.

Equipment Compliance:

• Validated that vehicles are in compliance with our contract — 6 new trucks have already been delivered in 2019.
• Four brush trucks will be replaced in 2019 (per contract) with 3 of them being delivered in July.

Management Oversight:

• Republic has hired 2 additional supervisors to help improve service.
• The Recycling Supervisor has been replaced to address recycling missed collections.
• Supervisors are being held accountable for their route performance.

“We are pleased to see significant improvements in our collections over the last month,” said Richard Speer, Director of Environmental Services. “We are still committed to improving and will continue working with Republic Services to monitor their progress.”