TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The City of Tampa announced that its crews have collected over 1 million cubic yards of storm debris after the city was hit by back-to-back hurricanes.
For reference, that amount of garbage is enough to fill the Rivergate Tower, aka the "Beer Can Building," three times.
"It would take 10,000 rail cars or more than 300 Olympic-sized pools to hold that much debris," a release from the city said.
Mandi Shelly lives on Davis Islands.
"The consensus is, everyone is happy, but if yours still hasn't been picked up yet, you're not really that happy or if you had a large amount of stuff, like taking out your drywall, the city has to come twice," Shelly said.
However, despite the progress, there are still hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of debris still left to pick up. On average, the typical household in Tampa produced about three truckloads of debris, which takes crews two hours to collect.
About 250 trucks are collecting the debris seven days a week across the city, but about 700,000 cubic yards of debris are still left to go. Three contractors and over 300 subcontractors have been hired to assist with the workload.
To help with the pickup, residents were asked to place the debris in three separate piles: vegetative storm debris, furniture and construction debris, large appliances.
You can also drop off debris yourself by visiting the following sites:
- 22nd Street Park, 7801 N. 22nd Street (Vegetative debris only)
- Gadsden Park, 6901 S MacDill Avenue (Vegetative debris only)
- McKay Bay Transfer Station, 114 South 34th Street (Vegetative and household debris accepted)
You must have a government-issued ID to drop the debris off for no charge.
The question remains, where will all of this debris go?
"There's just not enough room or enough capacity to get it all recycled and utilized back in the community so some will go to landfill, some will go to our waste to energy and some will be recycled," Mayor Jane Castor said.