Metro Atlanta city resumes trash service after crew members exposed to COVID-19

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — Update: The city of Douglasville resumed service with limited staff on Aug. 17.

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People in one metro Atlanta city will have to wait another week for their trash to be collected.

Channel 2′s Lauren Pozen was in City of Douglasville, where garbage is already piling up.

The city is taking extra precautions after a number of crew members were potentially exposed to COVID-19. City officials said the exposure did not happen on a trash route, but they aren't taking any chances.

The crew members were all placed under a 10-day quarantine and are awaiting test results.

Niesa Brooks said it isn't an ideal situation.

“It is very frustrating, like my garbage isn’t full as most people on the street you saw, but I still have this weeks trash to empty, and then part of next week’s trash,” Brooks said.

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Pozen drove through a few Douglasville neighborhoods Wednesday afternoon and saw a lot of trash cans filled to the brim. The cans will stay full until early next week.

“We are seeing a lot of trash cans out on the curb with the assumption that they are going to pick it up today,” resident Pennie Mitchell said. " They are going to come home and wonder why their trash wasn’t picked up.”

Kim and Brian Harrison told Pozen they feel the city shouldn't be in this position in the first place.

"That means someone, somewhere, dropped the ball and they weren't adhering to the guidelines," Kim Harrison said.

A city spokesman told Pozen the city is following all Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

The city said it is treating this like a holiday or weather event, which means the crew will pick up any additional trash that may have piled up because of the delay in service.

“In the winter, an extra week trash will stay frozen now were talking 100 plus degrees with this stuff baking for another week out there,” Brooks said.

The city said trash service should resume service Monday. Many people Pozen spoke to said they want a credit to their bill.

“We’ve paid for trash services this week that we are not getting,” Harrison said. " So if anything, we should get a credit so we can take our trash to the landfill since it is going to cost us to take it up there and dump it.”

Pozen asked the city about a credit. The spokesman said it’s something that would have be be brought up between the mayor and city council to see if it’s feasible.

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