Naples residents wondering when piles of trash will be picked up

More than three weeks have gone by since Hurricane Ian and people are wondering when is their debris going to get picked up.

Refrigerators, reclining chairs, and even flat-screen TVs are piled up alongside the road.

The city of Naples says there is no timetable yet as to when this can all be picked up.

Some of the piles are so high in some places that people wonder just how long it will take to clean up the mess.

Joseph Adiutori, a Naples resident said, “Yesterday or the day before we saw trucks like a couple of streets over and I just knew its a matter of time, I can wait.”

The city says they are working together with Collier County on this and close to 30 trucks are working sun up to sun down to get all of it removed.

Michelle Baines, interim utility director at the city of Naples said, “We’ve collected close to 130,000 cubic yards of debris. So to put that into perspective, that’s 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools.”

And when it does get picked up people are wondering, where all this pile of stuff go to.

“So that’s considered construction and demolition debris. So it’s all being hauled in those large double trucks that you’re seeing. And those are being hauled to approve temporary disposal sites. So that material gets disposed of temporarily at these sites. And then ultimately, that material then gets hauled again, it will actually get hauled up north to a landfill in the Okeechobee area,” Baines said.

There are a few things you can drop off on your own.

“So for household hazardous waste, things like paint, paint spinners, you know, that type of material, there’s actually designated recycling drop off centers in the county. And we have all those addresses on the city’s website under our Hurricane Ian recovery page,” Baines said.

People can also drop off vegetative waste at those sites. But as far as furniture and other materials people are going to have to wait for them to get picked up.

“Our hearts go out to the people who have you know, suffered a tremendous amount of devastation and damage and we’re here to help and we want to pick up the city and get it cleaned up as quickly as possible,” Baines said.

Curbside collection of household garbage, recycling, yard waste, and bulky items in Collier County has resumed on the regularly-scheduled collection day.