(Washington, DC) District residents who receive trash and recycling collection services from the Department of Public Works (DPW) will receive the new postcard-sized Slide Guide in the mail. The Slide Guide explains when trash and recycling collections will be made following holidays observed by the DC government. It lists the 2007 holidays between Emancipation Day, April 16, 2007, and Christmas Day, December 25, 2007.

“Every week, we collect from 110,000 households, and when a holiday occurs, trash and recycling collections slide to the next day,” said DPW Director William O. Howland Jr. “We created the Slide Guide to illustrate the slide to the next day so residents see when trash and recycling collections will resume after the holiday.” Approximately 75 percent of DPW’s customers receive once-a-week collection service, while residents of the older neighborhoods receive twice-a-week collections because the streets and alleys are very narrow.

For example, in once-a-week collection neighborhoods, if a holiday occurs on a Monday, Monday’s collections will be made Tuesday, Tuesday’s collections will be made Wednesday, and so on. Collections will be completed Saturday when crews collect from residences where the normal collection day is Friday. In Monday/Thursday twice-a-week neighborhoods, if a holiday falls on a Monday, collections will be made on Tuesday and Thursday’s collections will be made on Friday. In Tuesday/Friday twice-a-week neighborhoods, if a holiday falls on a Monday, normal collections will be made on Tuesday and Friday’s collections will be made on Saturday. The Slide Guide has been translated into Spanish and will be distributed through DPW and the DC Office of Latino Affairs (OLA). This information will be made available in Amharic, Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese upon request by calling the Mayor’s Citywide Call Center at (202) 727-1000. Residents may call the center about these and other DPW services as well as those provided by other DC government agencies.