Several residents in Lafayette Parish are experiencing a buildup of waste in their neighborhoods.

According to officials with Lafayette Public Works there are two general trash collection schedules: one for regular trash pickup and another for bulk waste. As listed on the Lafayette Pride Guide’s website, bulky waste, includes residential furniture, and should be collected once a month.

Eddie Lattin, a local resident, says “Garbage has never been moved! The trash has never been moved! Why not? I pay my bills here, I pay for the trash! Why don’t they come get it?”

In recent weeks some residents have also seen a delayed pick up in their trash bins. Public Works Director Kevin Blanchard says one of many programs, part of Project Front Yard, included an accelerated pickup of bulk waste, which was successful and cleaned up over 1000 tons of trash.

Blanchard says, “But what happened is we got behind on our yard waste pick up. As a result of that, because of the same machines, they pick up the bulk waste of the machines. They pick up the yard waste.” Blanchard adds that some residents were without services for as many as three weeks. “That was annoying for everyone and we understand that. This was a pilot project and we probably won’t do it that way again. We had some good results on one hand and some side effects on the other.”

According to Blanchard, with the help of the sheriff’s office inmate crews and increased staffing at the garage collection company, the backlog of yard waste has been taken care of.

If you are currently having a problem with the collection of large objects and regular trash pickup, call the environmental quality division or republic garbage collection services to file a complaint.