Houston City Council has approved a $12.5 million purchase for 31 new solid waste trucks during a July 30 City Council meeting.

The details

Mayor John Whitmire said during the meeting that 11 of the 31 new trucks are expected to arrive and be ready to operate by Aug. 1. The $12.5 million comes from the equipment acquisition consolidated fund, according to the agenda item.

The new trucks come as complaints to 311, a non-emergency number for contacting the city for various services, are rising and numerous City Council members said they have continued to receive numerous complaints about missed garbage and recycling pickups.

According to 311 data, from July 7 to Aug. 1, Solid Waste received thousands of complaints, including:
  • 3,732 missed recycling pickup
  • 3,326 missed garbage pickups
  • 1,674 missed heavy trash pickups


The context

Larrius Hassan, Solid Waste’s new director appointed on July 23, revealed to City Council that his team conducted a three month review of the department’s operations, finances and route management and found issues such as:
  • Employees not working the full 40-hour work week
  • Supervisors who allowed employees to work from home, despite Mayor John Whitmire’s directive ordering all municipal employees to return to the office
  • 32% of fleets were over seven years old
  • An average of 30 trucks were down each day, and another 20 would break down on a route
  • Employee participation in network shows, Houston Texans ads, travel and golfing using city dollars
  • Outdated, decade-old collection routes due to underutilized software
“This director inherited a mess that included people being off on Wednesdays,” Whitmire said during the July 30 meeting.

Whitmire said the department faces other obstacles, such as the city only having one drop-off location for recycling. He criticized the city’s contract with FCC Environmental Services, a group that has been operating the city’s only recycling plant since 2019 in northeast Houston, with the mayor saying that having this one recycling drop-off location has led to one-hour wait times for recycling trucks.

He said the city will re-examine its contract with the group and look for other opportunities with different vendors for multiple recycling drop-off locations.


“We’ve got to have more drop-offs,” Whitmire said. “There was a model that was put in place by the city of Houston that is counterproductive to successful recycling.”