Work slowdown blamed as trash piles up on Staten Island
DONGAN HILLS, Staten Island (WABC) -- Neighbors are fuming over trash bags piling up outside their homes on Staten Island and are wondering if a work slowdown is to blame.
"It's garbage. Eventually it will get picked up. I hope," resident Gerard Pitti said.
Pitti says they were supposed to pick up the trash on his street on Friday. Instead, it keeps piling up.
In some neighborhoods, trash has not been picked up in more than a week.
One woman lives on Neptune Street and says garbage on her street was supposed to be picked up last Thursday.
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She says sanitation workers are always here to pick up the trash, except for the last week and a half.
By some accounts, municipal garbage trucks are ending their routes half-empty.
Some political leaders have accused sanitation workers of staging a work slowdown by taking their time collecting trash.
Eyewitness News found workers methodically collecting recyclables on Wednesday, but they refused to comment on the allegations.
Mayor Bill de Blasio admitted that the evidence-like the trash on Staten Island-is piling up.
"There are some places where we're seeing that the totals just don't add up in terms of the trash being picked up," he said. "New Yorkers need to know that their city is going to be clean, and they have a right to that."
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Earlier this week thousands of municipal workers marched on City Hall to protest New York's vaccination mandate, that all city employees be vaccinated by Friday at 5 p.m. or be placed on unpaid leave.
"I just want to tell them; I had the vaccine. I had both shots. So, I think that it's not a bad thing to do," one resident said.
Some residents have no sympathy for unvaccinated workers. Others, like Gerard Pitti, support the workers despite the inconvenience.
"If they gotta do what they gotta do to support their rights to free choice, it's their body, their choice to take whatever they want to do," he said.
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