Rapid rubbish removal after Azalea Festival

The Azalea Festival has come and gone with little trace that it even happened, thanks to the city clean-up crews. The crews worked during the festival to maintain the streets and clear out trash left behind by parade-goers. More than 30 workers were on clean-up duty throughout the parade and street fair. Even with the crowds, it only took workers a few hours to clean up the streets Sunday evening. “They're very efficient at it. When all the crowds leave at the end of the day we use a lot of blowers, blow the stuff into the street. Then we have street sweepers that come through and pick it up so it's a lot of mechanical type cleanup,” said Richard King, public services director. Over the weekend, crews picked up more than 14 tons of trash. To put that into perspective, during an average week, they pick up under one ton of garbage.