BATON ROUGE - People in East Baton Rouge Parish are getting impatient over storm debris from Hurricane Delta. The city-parish starts debris pick-up next week, but Republic Services says customers who aren't waiting are causing problems.

It's been a week since Hurricane Delta blew through Louisiana, knocking out power for thousands, blowing branches into yards, and toppling trees. By now, many people have piled their storm debris at the curb for pick-up. Others have gotten a head start by putting their woody debris in with their regular trash, and it's slowing down trash pick up around town.

"People are putting their woody waste in their garbage cans and what's happening is the woody waste does not compact like regular garbage so it's slowing up the pick-up process," Chief Administrative Officer Darryl Gissel said.

Republic Services is asking people not to put woody waste in their garbage or recycling bins. Its trucks are filling up quicker, which means more trips to the landfill and delayed service to your neighborhood. Putting woody waste in your trash bin is also a fire hazard due to the debris being so dry alongside non-compactable material.

Monday, Oct. 19, the city-parish is activating its storm debris contractor, DRC Emergency Services. It's given residents a chance to get their debris piles to the road. DRC is a separate company from Republic Services, which will not be collecting any woody waste piles.

"Any large items, the city equipment will not be able to pick it up," Gissel said.

Initial debris removal efforts will start in the Sherwood Forest area, Oak Hills Place subdivision off Siegen Lane, Lakeshore Drive, Mid City and areas east of Interstate 110. Crews will move into other impacted areas in the coming days in coordination with city-parish damage assessment teams, who are continuing to assess parish-wide debris removal needs.

"I know people are always concerned about killing their grass if things stay out for a long time so we will be doing everything we can to advise people when those trash haulers will be in their neighborhoods," Gissel said.

People living on state highways will not be serviced by the city-parish emergency contractor. Neither will the cities of Zachary, Central, and Baker. Only Baton Rouge and the unincorporated parts of the parish will be serviced.

Last year during Hurricane Barry, DRC Emergency Services took about four weeks to make one pass through the parish. It's also important to remember that if you hire a private contractor to cut down trees on your property, that private contractor is responsible for cleaning up and hauling the debris. Any tree debris left on the side of the road that was cut by a private contractor will not be picked up.