[0:31] Travis, how would you throw that down at the residential drop off center? A plastic bottle.

[0:35] come on. It's just a plastic bottle. Who cares? Just the plastic bottle.

[0:39] hey, hold up timeout. We'll get to deandre's interview next. But

[0:43] here are some city headlines. Houston hosted its inaugural

[0:48] fleet week. More than 1500 service members and three

[0:52] ships visited our region, giving houstonians a rare opportunity

[0:56] to meet members of the armed forces tour ships and attend events

[1:00] across the city. It was a meaningful week that highlighted

[1:04] the dedication of the us navy, marines, and coast guard.

[1:08] we closed the week with the fleet week ball, celebrating service and

[1:13] sacrifice of these men and women. Houston showed up by welcoming

[1:17] our military, showcasing the best of our city, and expressing

[1:21] our deep appreciation. After weeks

[1:25] of discussion and dozens of public comments from houstonians city council

[1:30] approved revisions to an ordinance that regulates how houston police officers

[1:35] respond to civil immigration warrants issued by us immigration

[1:39] and customs enforcement, also known as ice mayor whitmeyer said that

[1:43] the change will follow the law, reinforce the fourth amendment and protect

[1:47] the city's 114 million in public safety funding

[1:51] from the state. Houston city council also approved both

[1:56] the lease and operator agreement for four 19 emancipation between the

[2:00] city of houston and the harris center for mental health and idd marking

[2:04] a major step forward in bringing this 24 7 triage treatment and

[2:08] transition facility online for individuals living without

[2:12] stable housing. Four 19 reflects the administration's commitment to homelessness

[2:17] response that helps move people from crisis to stability and toward

[2:21] permanent housing. We are here at the north main residential

[2:26] drop-off center with deandre huddleson. How are you today? Doing just fine. And

[2:30] yourself? Good, good. Tell us what happens here. So, residential drop off centers are

[2:34] made for residents to come when they don't have space at home, while they don't have the equipment

[2:38] to drop their trash so they can come here and recycle, they can drop heavy trash tires,

[2:42] scrap metal, concrete motor, all white goods and a

[2:46] large variety of other things. Now, when thinking about commercial goods, like things

[2:51] that get at the grocery store, what should they think about specifically to

[2:55] drop off? So specifically you want to try to focus on your regular household goods.

[2:59] we don't want any commercial stuff like, uh, business waste. We only want stuff that you

[3:03] have at home that you would use. So the important, uh, numbers

[3:07] that they should look at on the packaging as far as what can be recycled. Yeah, so

[3:11] that's a good question. So on plastic, you wanna look on the triangles.

[3:15] most of 'em have on the bottom of a bottle, it'll have a one through five or seven.

[3:20] and what are some things that you wanna make sure that residents know about recycling?

[3:25] recycling is real. Everybody thinks that the mill fields we are gathering is all

[3:29] up and taken to the landfill. It actually goes to a mur where it's mechanically separated and processed

[3:33] and sent all around the country to get recycling reused by everybody.

[3:37] so this happened to me. I had a tub of peanut butter.

[3:41] I finished it off, I I soak in water overnight, you know, to get all the

[3:46] remnants off, but there's still a little bit left along the rim. Will you

[3:50] take that? And is there something that you wish that maybe

[3:54] more people would do with their food containers before recycling? So obviously

[3:58] that's one step to take that will help tremendously. The main thing is to try

[4:02] to get as much food waste out of the recycling as possible so that we don't have contamination.

[4:07] what's up? Question with that in mind, pizza boxes, does it matter

[4:11] if they're broken down or not? Does not matter. Woo. Does

[4:15] not matter. So wait, you will take pizza boxes that even has like the grease and stuff on

[4:19] there? Yes. . Oh, wow. . Now something that

[4:24] kind of peeves me is when someone wants to put plastic bags and recycling and

[4:28] I'm like, no, you need to take them to the grocery store. That's correct. So, yeah,

[4:32] so we don't want plastic bags. And the reason we don't, 'cause like I said, at the murphy, everything's mechanically separated.

[4:37] so when you use those plastic bags, it's, they're wrapping up around the machinery and they have to stop

[4:41] and break all this stuff out and it takes time and money. So we try to not

[4:45] use plastic bags at all. We would like you everything to come here separately and out of

[4:50] the bags. So hours of operation, if people

[4:54] wanna just drop by, how do they do that? So we're open tuesday through saturday at

[4:58] these locations. We have 11 locations around town. They're open eight to five. These

[5:02] locations are open nine to six as well. Alright, we are going to catch

[5:06] up with the entree later on the show, but let us now go to this houston. How to

[5:10] on how to separate your heavy trash for easy pickup,

[5:19] heavy trash, big items that don't fit in your regular bin.

[5:23] the city of houston's solid waste management department works hard to keep

[5:27] our neighborhoods clean. Here's how you can help ensure your heavy trash

[5:32] gets picked up safely and efficient. Residents

[5:36] may place tree waste and bulk waste together for curbside collection once

[5:40] a month. This includes tree limbs, branches, stumps,

[5:45] furniture, appliances, and other large household

[5:49] materials. Dos and don'ts. Please limit

[5:53] to no more than eight cubic yards. Keep clear of water and

[5:57] gas meters, hydrants and utilities. No contractor generated

[6:02] materials. Do not stack under wires, signs or mailboxes.

[6:06] do not place items in the street or block. Sidewalks and traffic.

[6:14] give you your solid waste edition.

[6:20] houston has six neighborhood drop-off centers you can use up

[6:24] to four times a month. Bring your id and proof of residency

[6:28] for access. By working together, we can keep houston

[6:32] clean and beautiful. Please visit houston solid waste.org for

[6:36] guidelines, schedules, and drop off locations.

[6:46] coming up next on city pulse, the city introduces a new translation service for

[6:51] city council and we have a preview of it at a community meeting.

[6:55] don't go anywhere.

[7:02] houston 2026 is more than a tournament. It's a movement,

[7:06] a celebration of everything that brings us together.

[7:11] come ready to play. Come ready to celebrate as houston welcomes the world

[7:15] in 2026, meet dio choco, master

[7:19] of dance and legendary entertainer. We just took his keys for the day

[7:23] and gave him a ride metro fair card. This is his story.

[7:31] and where can choco go? Aquina in the heights,

[7:35] a dance off downtown or a southside wedding at the end of his travels

[7:39] heat. Wait. Where's choco now? Visit ride metro.org/choco

[7:44] to find out where is choco.

[7:53] welcome back. And next on the fix-it files. The minister's advisory board

[7:57] to the mayor lays the groundwork for inclusive community meetings by

[8:02] being the first to use ai translation provided by the department of neighborhoods.

[8:07] let's take a look at how this service has a major impact

[8:11] on the community and faith leaders.

[8:27] we are here at the minister's advisory board meeting today, and there is

[8:31] something amazing happening here. We have our translation system

[8:35] provided to us by the department of neighborhoods. Talk about your experience

[8:39] with this translation service. I know so many pastors, people in the community,

[8:45] probably they know the language, but they have some limitations. This is a wonderful

[8:49] opportunity for us to get together to help the people. It's a lot of information

[8:53] going on because the devices are just for anybody, any language.

[8:57] the mayor's heartbeat is just making sure transparency is

[9:02] involved. He wants to make sure that everybody has a opportunity and everybody has a

[9:06] seat at the table so that they can address their concerns. I have ian here with us and

[9:10] he's gonna kind of walk us through what it looks like when someone is using

[9:14] the translation services. Yeah. So what we have here is we have a, an

[9:18] a live captioning and simultaneous interpreting program here that

[9:23] supports multiple languages. I see people come in using this amazing qr

[9:27] code. So when they use the qr code, what happens? Uh, you snap the qr code, then it opens

[9:31] up the application, and then you can select the language. You can follow along, uh,

[9:35] with audio or just look at the translation as it scrolls down the screens. You voiced

[9:40] early on that, hey, we need some form of translation, then a opportunity

[9:44] for the translation services came in. Yes, I can tell you it makes

[9:49] the whole difference to pastors coming from all over the city

[9:53] and what translation does. It makes it possible that everyone's hearing

[9:57] the right information at the same time. Yes. And that we are able to transfer

[10:01] that to our churches and our people. But the beautiful thing about this translation

[10:05] service as ai, the more we've been able to use it, the

[10:09] better it's gotten over time. We are really thankful to the nature because

[10:14] he, you know, his effort in putting all this together just

[10:18] because he has a heart, he has a love and compassion for all

[10:22] the people that understand what's going on in their own language. So thank you so much.

[10:26] this translation service that has been brought to this meeting, what type

[10:30] of impact do you all think in your experience has had? Well, the key I

[10:34] think to all of it is essentially being able to communicate.

[10:39] and when we have issues of language, this breaks down that barrier.

[10:44] when I took this to mayor with my, it was a win-win. He jumped on

[10:48] it, said, hey, council, david, what do you need? He sees the need of

[10:53] bringing this type of program so that, as pastor president william

[10:57] said, it's a form of communication. It break down any barriers.

[11:01] thank you. Thank you for providing the resources because, uh,

[11:05] we, we wanna make sure they understand, right? We wanna make sure they engage.

[11:09] yes, we wanna make sure that they feel appreciated. Yes. And we wanna make sure they feel

[11:13] like, oh, I can do this. So again, I wanna thank you for watching

[11:17] the fix it files another community, another opportunity, another

[11:22] space that this administration has been able to go in, see an issue

[11:26] and fix it. Until next time, I'm rebecca williams.

[11:34] now it is time to get creative, taking common goods, like reusing these tires

[11:38] here, turning 'em into artistic autos as part of the annual art car

[11:42] parade. Spectrum fusion was on the scene and this is what they saw.

[11:50] we have been attendees of the art car parade for years. It was always one of my

[11:54] parents' favorite things to go and look at and see all the cars

[11:58] and take pictures with them. And we've always talked about being part

[12:02] of the parade. And then last year I was asked to be on the board of the orange show and

[12:06] I just thought, okay, if I'm on the board, I need to step it up and actually do what we've

[12:10] been saying we're gonna do for 10 years. And we jumped in with both feet and now we

[12:15] have the tiki set. We just had a blast our first year last year, and

[12:19] my husband decided that it would be fun if we added something to the car each year.

[12:23] this year we have added a surfboard. That's what he gave me for my birthday. It

[12:27] was quite a surprise. And that has been mounted to the side of the car.

[12:31] and so I'm sure that we'll have something else fun that we'll do for next year.

[12:36] and just hope to continue the tradition. America's 250

[12:41] birthday is this year. So we wanted to get the word out.

[12:45] my chapter, brad's valley got an excellent way to

[12:49] get the word out about the birthday, was to participate

[12:54] in the largest public event in houston, texas. And

[12:58] an incredible celebration. It's just a great event. There are

[13:02] tons of people, everyone's very happy. And we wanted

[13:06] to as have fun with the concept of patriotism.

[13:11] and this was a good place to do it. I hope everybody, if you've got

[13:15] any gumption to get in the parade, it is such an amazing thing to

[13:19] do. And it's huge. And all the people there are, they're having so

[13:23] much fun. And there's just, there's thousands of people that go. And

[13:27] if you wanna be in an art park, you can do it. If I can do it with all the

[13:31] velcro and staple guns and stuff, you don't have to be a huge

[13:35] serious artist to do it. You just have to have an idea and some gumption

[13:40] and just jump in. And I hope everybody will participate that wants to.

[13:48] we are back with deandre at the reuse warehouse, located right next to the north maine

[13:52] residential dropoff center. What is this place, deandre? So, the reuse warehouse is

[13:57] a great program where corporations, stores, even residents,

[14:01] can come and drop off any type of building materials that are not being used, that are still used

[14:05] for, so that we can donate 'em to 5 0 1 cs where they can come and shop and

[14:09] grab these items at no cost. Thank you again, deandre and thank

[14:13] you travis for remembering to recycle for hdv houston television

[14:18] spectrum fusion, the city of houston, and the solid waste management department.

[14:23] I am rebecca williams. Deandre's gonna take us on a quick tour, but remember as

[14:27] always, we can always do better and kindness is free.

[14:31] won won, let it go. I

[14:37] 'cause I

[14:44] oh hi.

Apr 23, 2026 City Pulse

Transcript