Cape Coral city crews tackle trash piles at dropoff sites

The City of Cape Coral is struggling to keep up with the mountains of trash piling up.

People in the city are using dropoff sites to at least get their trash away from their homes, but the trash problem seems to be neverending.

Boxes, mattresses, couches, yard waste – and giant teddy bears – are just some of the items spilling out of dumpsters and left for Waste Pro.

At the Northwest Softball Complex, workers spent much of the morning picking up trash left over the weekend. It was a similar scene at the Pelican Baseball Complex, where Phil Rivera got creative.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was like, this is kind of like what we would see during a hurricane or something like that, just these huge piles of trash and everything,” he said.

He turned the headache into humor.

“I saw this humongous bear that was laying there. It was probably the size of a car. I couldn’t lift it myself so I propped it up, put it back in there, and took some shots. It was fun.”

What isn’t fun? Continuing to deal with a rash of trash. Pickup delays have prompted Mayor John Gunter to ask the city to look into other options.

“I had a discussion with the city attorney regarding this issue because I thought that at some point in time, we may possibly need the legal representation because of this,” he said at a recent council meeting. “So I thought it was in the best interest of the city to have that representation sooner rather than later. That way if we do need legal advice then we have somebody in place.”

Until then, they’ll work with Waste Pro, using dropoff sites and public works crews to clean up.

Waste Pro is emptying dumpsters daily. The city said they’ll have an update on Waste Pro’s services at Wednesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.