Crews will be working seven days a week to help pick up yard waste like tree branches and palm fronds generated by Hurricane Matthew. And there’s a lot of it, says Brevard County Solid Waste Management Department Director Euripides Rodriguez 鈥� perhaps 300,000 cubic yards worth countywide.
Rodriguez cautions that it’s going to take some time to pick it all up. “It’s not something that’s going to happen overnight,” Rodriquez said.
Rodriguez said Waste Management Inc., the county’s regular trash hauler, will pick up yard waste put into containers, on customers’ regular yard waste pickup day.
Also, two contractors the county has agreements with for this purpose after storms will pick up piles of yard waste that is placed directly on the lawn or the driveway in unincorporated Brevard and in cities that join in this coordinated effort. Those pickups will take place seven days a week, but not on a regular schedule, and will involve dozens of trucks.
As a point of comparison, Rodriguez said the 300,000 cubic yards compares with the total yard waste of about 500,000 cubic yards generated from three other major storm to hit Brevard in 2004 and 2005 鈥� Frances, Jeanne and Wilma. And it’s more than 20 times what a typical week of yard waste collection would amount to in Brevard, he said.
The yard waste will be turned into mulch, Rodriguez said.
Rodriquez said about 90 percent of the Hurricane Matthew-related waste is vegetation, with the rest being “construction and demolition debris,” such as fencing, tiles, roofing material and docks.
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