Thousands of trash pickup requests in Houston were never even looked at. Now a council member is revealing what went wrong and what’s changing in 2025.
HOUSTON — After weeks of residents contacting KHOU 11 about illegal dumping and unreliable heavy-trash pickup, District I Council Member Joaquin Martinez is offering one of the clearest explanations yet of why Houston’s system has struggled for years, and what he says is finally changing.
On Friday, KHOU 11’s Michelle Choi returned to the Pecan Park neighborhood, the same place where residents first reached out for help before Halloween. Martinez walked the streets with Choi and resident Marco Roberts to talk openly about the problem. Martinez says he is personally invested in fixing it.
“I think that’s where for me it’s important that we continue to find solutions because it impacts me personally as well,” he said. “I’m not disconnected from the neighborhood or the community.”
This week at City Council, Martinez called the city’s heavy trash system “broken.”
“Right now our operations for heavy trash is and has been broken post-Harvey,” he said.
He explained that during Hurricane Harvey, trash trucks ran nearly 24/7 for weeks, which accelerated breakdowns.
“That’s where it really started handicapping us as far as heavy trash pickup,” he said.
Martinez says equipment failures, deferred maintenance and staffing shortages have only added to the problem. Most trucks are supposed to last seven to eight years, but Houston has many trucks that have been on the road for nearly twice that long. And with Houston’s population growing, the strain has increased.
“Within the last few years we’ve added more customers,” Martinez said. “I tell folks about 45,000 new customers.”
He acknowledged that Houston’s issues with heavy trash pickup are contributing to illegal dumping.
“Oh definitely,” he said. “Ultimately we need to find something sustainable.”
One solution he’s pushing is a heavy-trash-on-demand pilot program launching early next year in District I. Instead of trucks roaming every month, residents would schedule a pickup through 311.
“It’s a quicker service. You would call 311, we’re still working through this process, schedule your pickup, and then it would be more efficient, instead of having a truck go out and spend a day going through a neighborhood, it’s more strategic about where the locations are,” said Martinez.
But 311 has its own problems.
“There were just thousands of 311s just sitting there that were never even looked at and given a work order,” he said.
He says the new Solid Waste director is finally working through that backlog and restructuring how requests are handled. Martinez also believes Houston will eventually need a trash fee, something surrounding cities already have.
“We’re the largest municipality without a trash fee,” he said.
He added that Houston hasn’t been “forward thinking” about the long-term needs of Solid Waste.
“We haven’t been forward thinking in how we do right-size these departments for decades,” he said. “This has been a can that’s been kicked down the road for several administrations.”
When asked whether the current administration is ready to turn things around, Martinez said, “I feel very confidently that the mayor and this council is committed to it.”
One of the residents watching closely is Marco Roberts, who first contacted KHOU 11 in October when illegal dumping piles lined his street before Halloween. Roberts returned to City Council this week asking leaders for long-term solutions.
“The ask is for an actionable concrete plan of action to deal with the massive illegal dumping problem,” he told City Council.
He said seeing Martinez out in the neighborhood on Friday was encouraging.
“It’s encouraging, I definitely appreciate the councilman coming out here,” Roberts said. “I’m optimistic and hopeful, I’m also grateful for Channel 11 coming out and helping us out because I think you guys are doing an invaluable job bringing attention to this issue.”
Martinez said he understands that residents like Roberts want to see real change.
“My goal is that folks like Marco that have been here and call this home, understand we have empathy, we also have history of lessons learned and we have to make some tough decisions at the end of the day.”
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