And last week the sanitation union agreed to one-person garbage trucks and longer collection routes.

Under the sanitation contract, a labor-management committee will review the collection routes in the city's 59 districts to determine what productivity gains can be achieved.

But representatives of the industry deny the characterization, and say that competition does exist for collection routes.

Other cities have coupled recycling programs with more efficient trash collection routes.

Under normal conditions, after workers finish their collection routes, they have time remaining in their shifts to dump the garbage at a marine transfer station.

They finish collection routes more quickly because recycling reduced the amount of garbage.

As a result, he altered collection routes and negotiated a breakthrough agreement with the sanitation union to reduce collection crews, to two workers from three.

Hartford tried to leave commercial buildings and large apartment houses out of its municipal collection routes.

The city and the union agreed that within a month they would extend collection routes in a sample district.

You can also use the information to decide whether to make process changes, such as changes to collection routes, to improve efficiency.