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Broken trash containers causing serious safety concerns
Sanitation workers say broken trash containers are a safety hazard for them and for DeKalb County customers. Some of the large bins have gaping holes, allowing debris to fall out. The piles of garbage left behind after the truck leaves also attract rats.
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Sanitation workers in DeKalb County say faulty containers pose a hazard to the workers who deal with them, as well as customers.
The commercial containers the government issues to retail stores, apartment complexes corporate offices and more seem to be to blame.
Some of the large metal cans have rusted out. When the truck lifts those receptacles and flips them over, many of the contents spill out onto the truck windshield.
Sometimes, the windshields shatter.
One driver, Jerry Prioleau, recounted how a wood board once came through his windshield.
"Fortunately, it came through on the passenger side," Prioleau said.
Prioleau said he was pressured to keep driving his truck with the cracked windshield.
"I cannot address any worker who may have felt pressure," Andrew Cauthen, the communications manager for the county, told FOX 5. "But the safety of our sanitation workers, and all the government employees, is paramount."
Prioleau, who has thirty years of experience, told FOX 5 several containers on his route are faulty.
He said he feels reluctant to make pickups just to have the contents potentially spill given that "all kinds of heavy objects can be in those commercial containers."
At some locations, rats are often hidden in the piled up garbage.
Cauthen said the county has more than 7,000 customers and containers. He said 91 of them need repairs, and only two government welders are trying to refurbish them.
He said their efforts have been stymied by a nationwide product shortage of metal plates needed to seal the bottom of the old containers.