Director Harry J. Hayes  reinvented
Houston’s solid waste services while
cutting the department’s budget by
millions.

The importance of sanitation workers was highlighted in  April 1968, when the night before he was assassinated,  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told a group of striking employees in Memphis, Tenn, “We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end.  Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through.”

Dr. King wanted to use “The Poor People’s Campaign that he organized with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to address the issues of economic justice and housing for the poor. He hoped to bring national attention to the garbage collectors’ plight which came to a head when two of them were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck.

The city, which practiced neglect and abuse of its Black employees, was slow to respond. This led to 1,300 Black Memphis Department of Public Works employees going on strike. They had tried a couple of years earlier but their effort failed and the situation got worst when new mayor, Henry Loeb came into office. Workers drove trucks that should have been placed on the scrap heap themselves; they worked overtime without pay, and depended on welfare to make ends meet.

Cities all across the country had similar horror stories. Local governments took advantage of Blacks who once again held  traditional “Negro” jobs which were no longer attractive to Whites, since the U.S recovery from the Great Depression.

Things had already changed dramatically in 2007 when Harry Hayes took over as Solid Waste Management Director in Houston. “In the 1980’s a campaign was started to recruit women and other non-traditional solid waste workers in all depart-ments,” said Hayes who took over the 650-member, heavily Hispanic department. But he had an eye towards making the Solid Waste Management Department, “an employer of choice,” for anyone wanting a career.

He had only to look at himself as an example of how one could make a successful career out of Waste Management. A 16-year City employee, Hayes began as a special assistant to former City Council Member Rodney Ellis. Hailing as a 1985 Connaissance de la France graduate of the Universitie de Bordeaux in Talence, France, and in 1988 from Texas Southern University, he used his experiences as an enlisted mem-ber and an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, where he worked in the area of human resources, operations and supply management.

Hayes said becoming director was the furthest thing from his mind, yet he was surprised, but “honored” when then Mayor Bill White asked him to consider the position. Nevertheless, he said, “I was delighted that someone had noticed the work I was doing as deputy director,” he stated, dwelling on the previous position he held for 16 months.

As a new director, Hayes  really shined the year following his “rookie” season when Hurricane Ike hit the city of Houston. He led the department through record breaking debris recovery efforts which generated a debris field that covered the city’s 640 square miles with more than 5.4 million cubic yards of damage.

Not only did they collect the debris in record time, efforts led to the largest recycling project in Texas. Known as a “penny watcher,” especially when it comes to taxpayers’ money, Hayes has cut the department’s budget by millions of dollars through performance and operational efficiencies and contract renegotiations.

For example, he successfully renegotiated contracts for waste disposal and transfer station management which will reduce the city’s disposal payments by more than $70 million over the term of the new agreement and more than $150 million lower than the previous contract term.

These savings are vital because unlike most major cities, the city of Houston does not charge a user fee for residential garbage or other solid waste services. The department was also able to use stimulus money to expand the Automated Recycling Program by 54,000 homes last April.

Hayes is particularly proud of expanding the city’s recycling efforts with the addition of two new Neighborhood Depository & Recycling Center sites, a new Reuse Warehouse, 72,000 new homes with Automated Recycling Collection with Recycle Bank Rewards, Tree Waste Collection and Diversion, and the Yard Waste Diversion Pro-gram (Compostable Bags).

It’s all part of the department’s desire to make inroads to moving Houston to a zero waste society. “The easiest way to understand what zero-waste is is to think about nature .... Nothing is wasted. Zero waste is a long-term goal where the only thing that won’t go into a land-fill [are items] that can’t be reused,” Hayes continued.

But it’s not just the city’s residents Hayes is concerned about. Employees say that he makes a regular habit of checking their garbage containers—at work. “We don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk,” Hayes said.

On Aug. 10, the two new Neighborhood Depository & Recycling Center sites will open at Crosstim-bers and North Main and Southwest Freeway and Beltway 8.
At the north location, the Reuse Warehouse which makes materials and other items available to non-profits, will also celebrate its first birthday.