Dealing With After Christmas Trash

The Christmas gifts that were piled under the tree Monday have led to piles of trash on the curb on Tuesday. It's the season for mounds of trash. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says no

Tuesday, December 26th 2006, 10:07 am

By: News On 6

The Christmas gifts that were piled under the tree Monday have led to piles of trash on the curb on Tuesday. It's the season for mounds of trash.

News on 6 reporter Emory Bryan says no one has a better understanding of what was popular for Christmas - than the people who have to pick up the trash.

A stack is already piling up for Wednesday pickup - in what has become a Christmas crush for the trash service.

For most of us, the Christmas clean up ends with getting the cans back from the curb. For these men, it's the busy season and it's not over. Trash truck driver Jose Saldibar: "We get a lot of boxes from presents, wrapping paper and we've started getting mattresses and box springs, as you can see Santa Claus was rich this year.â€

Jose drives the truck for Jim Hinds Sanitation on a weaving course between stacks of Christmas debris. Two men jump and run to get the biggest stacks of trash they'll see all year. "Piles of trash, unbelievable."

While the after Christmas rush will last only a few days in the stores, for these guys it will last all week. It will go from now until about the 5th of January, because after the New Year, people start taking Christmas trees down.

Even though the piles of trash are the biggest ones of the year - most of it is lightweight - so it's not that much harder on the workers - and since most of it is trash that crushes easily into the truck - the actual volume of the trash isn't as much as it might seem. Wrapping paper and boxes are no match for a truck that can crush a television flat.

Now as much trash as there was Tuesday, Thursday there will actually be more. That's the makeup day for the people who normally have trash picked up Monday, they can put out twice as much.