City mulls using rolling trash cans to help cleanup effort

Programs and resources to clean up San Jose’s dirtiest areas this year were a tremendous success, according to a recent joint memo from the city’s environmental services and parks departments. Despite an increase in complaints, the city’s RAPID (Removing And Preventing Illegal Dumping) Team, which tackles calls and does regular street sweeps to check for illegal dumping, slashed response times by adding four new members to their crew at the beginning of 2017.

“With the addition of the four (new workers) and over 1,000 hours of overtime work, the average response time has decreased from 11.2 days at the end of fiscal year 2016-2017 to 4.1 days currently,” the memo said. RAPID Team members also “completed 98% more assignments compared to the same timeframe” as July to October 2016.