Austin garbage truck dumps trash on side of the road

AUSTIN, Texas - A pile of trash dumped by a city employee in a North Austin neighborhood left a resident questioning why.

John Hostutler is a resident on Capitol Drive near Rundberg and I-35. He says he saw a driver taking recyclables out of the truck on Wednesday of last week, and leaving it on the side of the road. 

The trash was still there on Monday when FOX 7 Austin first spoke to him. 

"He just had like a shovel and started on the passenger side, he went to the other side of the trash truck and opened up that bin right behind the cab and did the same thing," he said. "I see him driving away. I stopped him... He backs up a little bit and tells me, 'I really don't have time for this.'"

Hostutler said he informed the city about the problem and still hadn't heard anything. 

FOX 7 reached out to Austin Resource Recovery. They sent us the following response:

"Our driver experienced an equipment malfunction during recycling collection. The driver removed recycling materials from the truck and attempted to gather it up to be collected. The driver did notify his supervisor that he was having the equipment malfunction. However, he did not adequately share the extent of the issue or that the recyclables needed to be collected.  
 
We have spoken with the driver, and staff collected the recyclables on Monday. This was an isolated incident. Unfortunately, the employee did not follow our established protocols, which require reporting the issue to dispatch and waiting for further instructions. We are taking immediate steps to ensure this does not happen again, including providing additional training to drivers and reminding them about the proper procedures during upcoming staff meetings."

"It's nice that they picked it up finally," Hostutler said when we checked back in with him.

However, he says there are still challenges on his street.

"We're all frustrated here in this neighborhood because there are a lot of things we've called for almost 20 years about the streets," he said.

He says the road isn't wide enough, and the sides are crumbling. 

"I've asked for speed bumps, sidewalks," he said.

He says he's made multiple service requests to 311. 311 says the requests were sent to Austin Transportation and Public Works.

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Austin Transportation and Public Works sent the following:

"The City of Austin has been actively expanding the sidewalk network for two decades. However, the sheer volume of streets without sidewalks— the result of more than a century of not requiring sidewalks to be built on all streets—means that many gaps still exist.

Even with the construction of 400 miles of sidewalk since a new approach was instituted in 2016, there are still approximately 800 miles of absent sidewalk in Austin.

The 2023 Sidewalks, Shared Streets and Crossings Plan has more information on the City’s ongoing work to complete its pedestrian network. The plan sets a target to address all very high and high priority sidewalks and shared streets within 10 years (approximately 340 miles of new sidewalks and 200 miles of shared streets). The estimated annual budget to reach that target is $32 million per year.

Overall, sidewalk funding and sidewalk conditions have improved significantly in the last five years, but there is still a tremendous amount of work left to do."