How much extra garbage is there after Christmas?

After the Christmas presents have been unwrapped and the holiday dinner has been eaten, most of us face one of the more unpleasant tasks of the holiday season: packing up the wrapping paper and all the other assorted holiday garbage and hauling it out to the curb. Taking a look around at the trash bins lining the streets on the first trash day after Christmas, it seems as if the trash outputs of most households easily double after the holidays.

Actually, says Veolia Environmental Services General Manager Lyle Paullin, the amount of trash picked up after Christmas is about 75 percent higher than normal. The higher levels last about two weeks, then immediately drop back down pretty close to normal, Paullin said.

All that trash means a lot of extra work for the haulers. Normal trash routes take about nine hours to complete, but in the weeks after Christmas, each route takes about three hours longer, making for 12-hour workdays for the haulers.

"They leave here in the dark and come home in the dark," Paullin said. None of Veolia's haulers are allowed to take any vacation time during the weeks after the holidays, but they are paid overtime for the extra hours.

Veolia Environmental Services is based in Paris, France, and according to the company, is the 33rd largest corporate employer worldwide. In December, the company announced plans to sell its solid waste division in North America, which is based in Milwaukee.

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