Holiday Heroes: Trash Collection in the City of Richmond

Star Rowland, Ramon Singletary, and Christopher Brown will tell you immediately that their jobs are about communication. “Trust plays a huge factor,” Chris explains, and Star agrees. “You make a bond with the folks on the truck.”   

As a trash collection driver, Star’s role is to get collectors like Ramon and Chris to the next site safely and to be an extra set of eyes while they load up the truck.  

A Day in Trash Collection 

A workday starts earliest for drivers, especially during cold weather. They check the vehicle and warm it up so that everything is ready to go for the collectors. Then they’re off, running a different route each day of the week. They can spend 5 or 6 hours on the truck early in the morning before they bring all the trash back to the transfer station. There, everything gets loaded onto a tractor trailer and goes to the landfill. 

There's even more to load up during the holidays. The team notices more trash, and more food waste in particular means more animals. “When I see collectors start rushing, I know there’s an animal in the can,” Star says. Ramon and Chris have encountered raccoons, squirrels, rats, and even a snake or two on their routes!  

Animals are just one of the hazards a Solid Waste team encounters on the job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists trash collection as one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.  

“The only way trash collection works is if everybody is watching everybody,” Ramon says. “Our lives are on the line every day.” 

Solid Waste teams are trained and certified in safety strategies, but keeping our trash collectors safe should be a community-wide effort. Here are some simple things you can do to help collection teams gather your trash quickly and safely.  

• Drive carefully around collection vehicles. Drivers are working hard to keep their collectors safe, and their lines of sight are limited. Support the safety of our workforce by slowing down and keeping eyes open for collectors when you see a truck. 
• Leave out the dangerous stuff. Most cans have a sticker listing items that can’t be thrown away, like gas cans, propane tanks, and hazardous chemicals. Some of these items can damage a truck or cause explosions when they’re compacted, and collectors have had chemicals like bleach spray out onto their uniforms. Check out disposal options for those items through the East Richmond Road Convenience Center.  
• Bag your trash. The team says that when loose trash goes into a can, wind can send it flying. It’s also more likely that an animal will get into the refuse. Tie your bags closed before dropping them into your can. “We’re trash collectors, but we shouldn’t have to clean up after folks,” Star says. 
• Place the can at the edge of your property on collection day. It can be unsafe for collectors to walk through a property to get a can, and it slows down an already tight schedule. Check your collection day and make sure cans are ready to go that morning. If you have mobility challenges that make moving your can difficult, you can review the City’s Back Door Service policy to see if you’re eligible. 
• Reduce the weight of each can. When lids are regularly open and overflowing, water can get in and weigh down trash. Same with bulk items; the truck tippers can snap off if they lift a can that’s too heavy. Order another can by calling 311, and make sure your larger items go to bulk collection instead. 
• Read your notes. When collectors notice an issue with your can, they’ll often leave a green or orange ticket on top of the can. If you spot a colorful card, take the time to read it. Most often, the collectors are trying to help someone replace a broken can, which is quick and free. The team says it’s rewarding when they come back the following week and see a new can. It means someone read their message and followed the guidance!  

A few small habit changes from residents—and a little more awareness of the people who take on this vital role—can make a big positive impact on a collection team’s workday. And a little more awareness of the people who take on this vital role helps us all keep our neighborhoods clean. “You gotta keep trash on schedule,” says Ramon. “It keeps society running.”

What's the best part of trash collection work?

The kids! The students on Chris’s route like to hear the horn honked each week, and Ramon shouts out the little girl on his route who’s named their truck Wilbur. 

A Plastic Bag Resolution: Switch and Save!

Want to make another small change with a big impact in 2026? Let’s make this the year of the reusable bag!  

Starting on January 1, 2026, single-use plastic bags at Richmond grocery stores, convenience stores, and pharmacies will include a new 5 cent tax. 

Did you know? Cities across the country have been using similar policies successfully for more than a decade. Richmond is joining hundreds of communities nationwide to make this commitment to reducing plastic waste. 

Richmond’s Office of Sustainability has been working with these businesses for months to get ready for the tax, and now we need your help. Make this proven practice a habit when the new year rolls around by sticking a few reusable bags in your car, your backpack, or your office so that they’re easy to grab when you head to the store.  

Learn more about the new tax and the cool initiatives it will support at the RVAgreen 2050 website. 

Bring one for the Chipper

Richmond’s favorite E-Cycle event is back on Saturday, January 10. Stop by 1710 Robin Hood Road between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. with your electronics and Christmas trees.  

Poet’s Corner: Are you our next Poet Laureate?

One exciting thing headed our way in 2026 is the appointment of our city’s next Poet Laureate! Joanna Lee finishes her time as Poet Laureate in April, and a team of community members and City staff are hard at work looking for the next person.  

A Poet Laureate is a talented poet in their own right, but they also elevate the voices of others around Richmond. Joanna has taken on that task through this newsletter, calling for community submissions this fall. Below, she shares two additional community submissions, a reminder that Richmond is filled with folks telling a wide range of stories about who we are and how we come together as a city.  



If you’re interested in applying or nominating someone for Poet Laureate, please visit go.rva.gov/poet-laureate to check out all the details. Take it away, Joanna!  

Here  

Kim Bridges 

We soak in backyard mornings 

of green, yellow, brick and brown  

surrounded by the barks, trills, and shouts  

of work and playground.  

As seasons shift sun and shadow, 

we track color change and river depth,  

silence heavy air with a lonely chorus  

of compressor hums, 

delight at sturgeon leap, 

and gasp at early-frosted grass.  

We pass through a collage  

of cranes and rail, 

wood and steel, 

statues and cobblestones  

and stand at the junction  

of mountain and sea,  

past and future,  

pain and healing.  

We are always and never surprised  

at graves and wells 

mounds and trails 

stories and tales  

unearthed by the inevitable march to tomorrow.  

Here,  

the sounds and seasons,  

memories and milestones,  

learning and unlearning,  

are home.  

This poem does an excellent job of describing the cycle of seasons here, both natural and man-made. I appreciate the balanced view the poet gives us, how we are “always and never surprised” at both trails and graves, constantly in a state of “learning and unlearning.”  

--JL 

Understory 

Michele Riedel                  

For Sittee and Jidde, my Lebanese grandparents who are buried at Mt. Calvary, James River. 

I turn over the sweet gum leaf 

on the ties between the tracks, 

hearing the air-brakes moan. 

I am here Sittee, Jidde, 

at Mount Calvary— where you are,  

watching the soar of seagulls  

lost in the draw of fish below. 

He says, Hello wife; marhaban. 

His pant leg spattered with dry-paint. 

Another roof scramble, no ladder 

cane pointing, derby cap tipping. 

Your grape leaves are too mushy, 

Your stove not clean, Hee hee hee! 

You should eat my malfouf, 

cabbage rolls, they are best. 

She ambles toward him with swollen ankles, 

wearing shoes with cut-out toes. 

Yesterday I was at the farmer’s market, 

today at the stove! 

His grimace fixed in craggy rock 

while Sittee argues yalla! 

Her hands flailing to the beat of the grass fronds. 

Behind wheatgrass, I hide 

protected from the spit and swear— 

tossed stones, sputtered English, 

lost in thick weed. 

Sitte, Jidde, your shouting words  

no longer scare me. 

I am here, I have found the path 

downstream where your sweat and toil  

bring might to the rapids— 

Two reeds swirl around rock fissures, 

move with the rise and fall of current, 

take rest at shoreline, 

where dusk kissed sky soothes. 

I see his wry grin- 

her hand gracefully framing her belly, 

Two herons move together,  

taste salty James. 

What I love about this poem is how it is both grounded in this place, this city, the banks of this river… and yet it reminds us of where we come from. The poet, a descendent of immigrants, acknowledges their roots and what they brought to this community:  I have found the path // …where your sweat and toil // bring might to the rapids… A needful reminder in these times.  

--JL 

The Month in Photos 

From left to right and top to bottom: 



• The City of Richmond joined in on the 2025 Dominion Energy Richmond Christmas Parade. 
• Tis the season: CoR employees at City Hall gathered for caroling. 
• The Department of Neighborhood Engagement held a toy drive that provided books and toys for 45 RPS students. 
• A resident shared snowy RVA pics with the City’s Instagram.  
• Mayor Avula and CAO Odie Donald II joined a DPW team as they cleared the streets of snow. 
• The James River on a snowy day submitted to the city’s Instagram by a resident. 
• For our next Holiday Heroes, we met up with a crew from the refuse collection team at the Department of Public Works. 
• RVA is lit: City leaders gather to light up the city’s skyline at RVA Illuminates. 
• December 10th was International Human Rights Day. The Office of Equity and Inclusion held a lunch & learn in partnership with the Human Rights Commission for City employees and community members to join in and learn. 
• Mayor Avula, community members, and artist Barry O’Keefe joined together to celebrate Barry’s public art installation at the Charles Sidney Gilpin Community Farm. 
• Mayor Avula and 9th District Council Member, Nicole Jones grab a quick selfie at the Mayor’s Holly Ball event. 

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