Where would Lafayette residents dump their trash 50 years ago?
They dug a hole and dropped garbage in it. Burned it. There was an old dirt pit in Lafayette. It was a deep hole in the ground. When I was a kid I’d see garbage trucks back up and dump their stuff in it. Dumps used to be a hole in the ground. Literally, a hole in the ground. Why did Lafayette switch over from manned garbage trucks to the robot-arm thing? Two reasons. Allied Waste was losing money on the contract and they had service problems in 2007 that went on for awhile — they couldn’t keep people on the back of the truck. It’s a tough, tough job. They brought in people from outside — Beaumont, Lake Charles — and still had problems. They were behind. The initial contract stated that people were to use 35 gallon garbage cans. But residents eventually began using 40, 50, 60 gallon garbage cans. How is one guy supposed to lift that when it’s full? That’s why we went to the automated. It had gotten totally out of control. Household garbage must fit in the cart. If it’s not in the cart,
