Trash has been piling up on sidewalks in more than a dozen Cincinnati neighborhoods for almost two weeks, with more than 1,000 residents still waiting on pickup as of Monday. The city says a staffing shortage in the Department of Public Services is to blame, but residents say they were left in the dark until they started complaining themselves.
According to WCPO 9 Cincinnati, worker absences in the Public Service Department have impacted nearly every neighborhood in the city, with employees calling out sick for multiple days at a time. Oakley resident Kate Ruttkay told the station that her trash was not picked up on Thursday or Friday, and that neighbors began filing complaints once the smell and mess became too much to ignore. Oakley residents specifically missed pickup last week, and Ruttkay said the accumulated trash left odors and cans blocking sidewalks, making it hard for children to play outside.
Nichole DiCiero, another resident affected by the delay, described the missed pickup as smelly and frustrating, per the same WCPO report. Ruttkay added that residents had to actively seek out information just to get an update on when their trash would finally be collected, rather than the city proactively notifying them of the delay.
Complaints Pile Up Alongside the Trash
Complaints Pile Up Alongside the Trash
The backlog has reportedly touched at least 13 Cincinnati neighborhoods, including Hyde Park, Oakley, Westwood, Columbia-Tusculum, and Walnut Hills, according to a report cited by Apple Podcasts. That is a wide swath of the city's residential map, given that Cincinnati's Department of Public Services provides free weekly garbage collection to roughly 92,000 households spread across the city's 52 neighborhoods, per the City of Cincinnati.
City Promises Catch-Up, but Leaves Questions Unanswered
The city told WCPO that all trash will be collected this week as scheduled, and confirmed it will also pick up trash that does not fit in residents' cans on the same timeline. However, the city did not answer whether it is working on a longer-term solution to prevent this kind of multi-week service gap from happening again, according to the outlet's reporting.
A WVXU report said a commission recommended creating a waste collection fee. The available reporting does not establish how that proposal would affect funding for trash collection, fleet maintenance, or road repairs, or whether the city faced a $10.2 million structural deficit.
What the Rules Say About Set-Out Trash
Under city regulations, trash carts must be placed at the curb no earlier than 5 p.m. the evening before collection and no later than 6 a.m. on collection day, with container weights capped at 75 pounds. Those rules are designed for routine weekly pickup, not the extended waits residents describe, and they say little about what households should do when carts sit untouched for days. City materials cite Ordinance No. 41-2013 in connection with municipal collection, but the available information here does not specify which residential properties qualify.
The city separately offers a bi-weekly curbside recycling program alongside weekly garbage collection. That distinction does not establish whether recycling pickups continued on their normal schedule during the garbage backlog. For bulk items, the Department of Public Services mentions scheduled collection, without specifying here how many items may be included or what penalties apply to excess waste.
The current backlog follows other recent adjustments to the region's waste collection operations. In June 2025, Rumpke shifted pickup times earlier during a heat wave to protect sanitation workers from heat-related illness. This time, the disruption stems not from weather but from staffing gaps inside the department itself, leaving residents like Ruttkay and DiCiero to wait out the smell and mess until crews catch up.
