As residents gather the debris and place it along roads, solid waste officials are faced with a daunting task: collection.

The job will take weeks.

County officials have a preliminary estimate that 450,000 cubic yards of debris will need to be hauled away by individuals or refuse collectors. Most of that is vegetation, with about 100,000 cubic yards of building debris.

The numbers tell the story.

On the Tuesday before Charley's Friday the 13th strike, Polk's North Central Landfill between Lakeland and Winter Haven handled 92 tons of yard debris. This past Tuesday brought 467 tons.

On a normal day, the landfill receives about 2,000 tons of all types of debris. On Monday, it took in 3,100 tons.

``When you have a disaster, handling the debris is a large portion of it,'' said Ana E. Wood, Polk's solid waste director.

Polk has taken several steps to meet that demand, .

Two private waste-hauling companies have been hired.

Today they will start picking up hurricane debris seven days a week until the task is finished. That's in addition to two companies - Florida Refuse Service Inc. and Waste Management Inc. - that are the county's regular haulers and already picking up debris.

A closed landfill off U.S. 17 south of Haines City has been reopened. The county has received permission from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to use that landfill and another on State Road 60 east of Lake Wales for collecting hurricane debris.

All three landfills will remain open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day until further notice. Since Monday, charges at the landfills have been waived for those bringing in hurricane debris. People charged last weekend should save their receipts and the county will reimburse them, said Brooks Stayer, landfill operations manager.

The county doesn't have an exact cost determined for the debris removal, but officials know it will be high.

Crowder-Gulf, of Theodore, Ala., has the contract to clear debris west of U.S. 27 and is charging $16.50 per cubic yard. Grubbs Emergency Services, of Brooksville, will clear debris east of U.S. 27 and is charging $25 per cubic yard.

Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines say that it pays 75 percent of the debris removal costs in disaster areas and local government takes care of 25 percent. Polk commissioners will ask legislators to pursue getting some of that 25 percent from state coffers.

Opening up the other two landfills allows the county to dispose of the debris without largely increasing the volume at the main North Central Landfill, Wood said, a move that will save money.

``What that means to the citizens is you didn't incur additional cost because now you have three landfills where you can dispose of debris and you don't have to transport it out of the county,'' she said.

Wood and her staff noticed increased use of the main landfill even on the day of the storm.

``They were bringing in old boats and things that had been in the back yard and all of a sudden they decided, `We really need to clean that out,' '' said Richard Straight, the solid waste division's accounting manager.

It's hard to gauge how long landfill lines will continue, but Stayer said they expect to stay busy ``at least the next two weekends for sure, and we'll see how people are doing after that.''

As they repair their yards, residents can find one silver lining on the cloud that was Hurricane Charley: free mulch.

As always, the yard debris brought to the landfill is turned into mulch. Residents can get the mulch at the North Central Landfill whenever they want.

``We've always had free mulch for citizens here,'' Stayer said.

Reporter Cheryl N. Schmidt can be reached at (863) 683-6531.