New Trucks ease Olathe’s system
Tossing bags that can weigh as much as 50 pounds from in front of as many as 500 homes is a difficult job, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not one worth doing.
“They think it’s bad because it’s trash,” Mike Robinson, a residential trash employee for Olathe said of the public’s perception. “It’s hard work, but it’s not a bad job.”
Donnie Morrison, the commercial supervisor in the solid waste division, began throwing trash for the city 15 years ago. He said it wasn’t a glamorous job.
“No one grows up and says, ‘I want to be a trash man,’” he said.
Robinson and 29 others who work for the division patrol the city’s neighborhood streets, often working overtime to make sure what you put in front of your house to be disposed of doesn’t stay there long.
Three groups comprise the division: residential, commercial and recycling. Each week, the city collects trash from 35,200 Olathe houses, yard waste from 32,000 houses and recycling from 10,000 houses.
Unlike most of the more than 900 city employees who had the day off on Veterans Day, Robinson and his fellow workers hit the streets to pick up residents’ grass clippings, leaves, small plant trimmings and tree limbs.
