Memo Refuse Route Changes•
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SUBJECT: Refuse Route Changes
CITY OF HOPKINS
MEMORANDUM
DATE: January 27, 1993
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Lee Gustafson, Public Works Director
The purpose of this memorandum is to provide the City
Council with information on the upcoming refuse route
changes scheduled for March 1. The information provided
will describe the changes to the program as well as how
residents will be affected. The City Council is not being
asked to take any action on this matter. However, staff
would like Council to hold a discussion to make certain they
are aware of all the changes.
The discussion of refuse route changes began last summer
when staff approached Council with a summary of our entire
refuse program. Changes to the refuse routes were mentioned
at that time as a means to make our present collection
system more efficient. Further analysis of this service has
confirmed those initial thoughts, and staff is now prepared
to make the necessary changes.
The most significant change that will be occurring with our
present system is that we will be going from a two truck
route system to a one truck route system. Presently, two
trucks operate Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday to
collect residential waste. The new system will involve one
truck operating Monday through Thursday, 10 hours per day
instead of the present 8 hour work schedule. Please refer
to the attached map. The new system will also have the
drivers start a half hour earlier in the morning at 6:30
a.m., and have them work longer in the afternoon.
The main reason staff feels these changes are necessary is
that it will make our collection system more efficient, and
somewhat more economical. Efficiency will increase by
having one person solely responsible for collection instead
of two. Also, scheduling of personnel will be more
effective by levelling off the work loads instead of having
peaks in the beginning of the week.
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January 27, 1993
Page 2
One other advantage in making these changes is that it will
improve customer service. Currently, when one of the
automated trucks breaks down we are forced into using our
rear load refuse truck for collection. This requires two
men to manually empty the big 90 gallon containers into the
back of the rear loader. When this occurs our grass and
leaf collection service is basically shut down until such
time as we are able to free up the rear load refuse truck.
This procedure furthermore delays other job duties by
requiring additional personnel to be assigned to refuse
collection. The new collection system, however only uses
one truck allowing us to keep one truck as a spare. If a
break . down does occur, the refuse driver will immediately
switch over to the spare truck and proceed with his route
while the mechanics fix the other truck. The'grass and leaf
bag collection crews are naturally not affected by this any
longer, and can therefore continue on their route as if
nothing happened.
As was mentioned earlier, the refuse route changes are
scheduled to be implemented on March 1. Residents will be
notified of the changes prior to this date through a series
of news articles, and possibly cable T.V. coverage. The
first notification will be through the Sailor newspaper.
Staff will be requesting the Sailor to publish an article
summarizing the changes subsequent to Councils review on
February 2. The next notification will occur the week of
February 15 when all refuse customers receive a hand
delivered notice summarizing the changes. The third step in
the notification process will be to request that the Sailor
publish a short news brief asking residents to watch for an
article in the next Hopkins Highlights. The final
notification will occur 3 -4 days prior to the refuse route
changes when the residents read the Hopkins Highlights.
Staff is anticipating that there will still be some
confusion with the route changes even though everyone
receives a notice. In order to address this problem the
driver will be required to pick up missed collections on the
following refuse collection day. Missed collections on
Thursday will be picked up on the following Monday.
We are presently all accustomed to having our recycling
picked up on the same day as our refuse. This same day
service will continue with our new route system. Our
recycling contractor, Waste Management, has reviewed our
route changes and has agreed to change their routes to
coincide with the city's.
►1wNE TONK•
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THE CITY OF
HOPKINS , MINNESOTA
HENNEPIN COUNTY
NOT TO SCALE
REFUSE ROUTES
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY