Nashville temporarily halts curbside recycling due to staffing shortage

Nashville is halting its curbside recycling program immediately to prioritize trash pickup, which has been backed up for weeks.

For trash collection, Metro relies on waste services contractor Red River, which has been unable to complete its routes for three weeks due to staffing shortages. Last year, the city had similar trouble with the Texas-based company, which began bankruptcy restructuring in October.

City officials say catching up on trash routes is more important in light of sanitation issues. So Metro recycling trucks will be reassigned to pick up trash.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re having to do this, but the priority is a public health issue, which is picking up the trash,” director Scott Potter told Metro Council members Monday night. “The secondary issue, unfortunately, is recycling.”

Potter worries that households will just put their recycling in their trash cans, putting collection even further behind. He made a personal plea for residents to limit their “footprint” and take recycling to collection centers around Davidson County, listed here.

The convenience centers that accept trash have also upped the free limit from two to five bags to make up for the delay on curbside service.

Council members have been receiving angry calls about missed trash for weeks. Since July, the city has been working on contingency plans to take over more routes for Red River, which at one time was handling a majority of the city’s trash collections.

“It’s not surprising to me that we’re in the predicament we are,” Councilman Steve Glover said at the impromptu hearing.

Metro is facing several challenges in picking up the slack. Many of its own trash trucks are out of commission due to maintenance shops being short staffed and unable to repair them. And other trash haulers are busy cleaning up tornado debris in neighboring Kentucky, Potter said.

Metro is currently looking around the country for best practices for when Red River’s contract expires in 2024. At that time, Potter expects the city will no longer “put all our eggs in one basket like we have found ourselves currently.”

This post was updated Monday at 6:20 p.m. with comments from a Metro Council meeting.