Record Snowfall Hampers Boston Trash Collection

The Boston Globe

Bins filled to the brim with trash awaited a pair of sanitation workers on a Dorchester street Thursday morning, but they couldn’t reach them.

It was a tight squeeze for the red and yellow Mack garbage truck that got stuck as the driver tried to creep through a maze of 6-foot snowbanks and vans parked on both sides of Bakersfield Street. The workers had to shovel the wheel of the truck out of the snow before they could move on.

“It’s crazy out here. It’s just ridiculous driving,” said the 48-year-old driver, Angelo Santostefano. “We are doing the best we can for the city and the residents out here in Dorchester. We just hope they can bear with us.”

With weeks of debilitating storms that covered the city in more than 100 inches of snow, trash collection has become a daunting mission. In some areas, garbage bins and dumpsters sit buried deep in snow, hidden behind colossal snowbanks or dangerously perched atop mounds of snow. Drivers must navigate icy roads with remarkable skill and precision to avoid damaging vehicles on the street.

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