Garbage collectors on the lookout in North Aurora

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Updated: May 9, 2012 10:17AM

NORTH AURORA — The garbage collectors who make their way through the village streets Friday won’t just be looking for trash cans and recycling bins.

They’ll also keep their eyes open for possible emergencies and crimes in progress.

North Aurora this week became the seventh Chicago-area community to join Waste Management’s WasteWatch program, said Tony Farneti, Waste Management Midwest Group security director. Elgin signed onto the partnership last year. Other communities which have joined the program since it was formed in 2004 are DeKalb, Joliet, Lockport, Lemont and Buffalo Grove.

“Garbage truck drivers move through neighborhoods more slowly. They’re used to seeing the same people and the same vehicles in the same places,” Farneti explained. “They tend to notice when something’s out of place.”

Trash collectors assigned to North Aurora met at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday for a 45-minute training session with Farneti and police Lt. Scott Buziecki. They went over signs of suspicious activity, as well as indications of fire or residents trapped within a building, Buziecki said.

“Any time you have a whole bunch more eyes and ears in the community, it’s a good thing,” Buziecki said. “No other group besides postal workers visits every house in the village all in one day. The things they see and hear could be valuable.”

In fact, a trash collector gave police information that helped in the investigation of a home invasion last summer, Buziecki said. Collectors in other towns in the WasteWatch program have helped save lives and prevent crimes, Farneti said.

“We don’t want them to get involved or to investigate anything odd,” Buziecki said. “We just want them to watch out for indications of public safety situations and to call them in to us.”

Waste Management employees are not authorized to stop or question people or to try to enter or look into homes, he emphasized.