Recycling program still agitates residents
CHESAPEAKE — For the last month or so, 38-year-old Chesapeake resident Jason Tureman’s recycling has been sitting, full to the brim, awaiting a pickup that never seems to come.
Several of his recycling collection dates have been missed as the citywide recycling program ground to an unexpected halt. Tureman’s irritated about the way Chesapeake has managed the issue and wishes the city hadn’t terminated the recycling contract.
“It’s been grossly mishandled and I just don’t think any of (the city councilmembers) should be in this position anymore,” said Tureman, who plans to vote against each member of council when reelection time rolls around.
To many, the recycling situation in Chesapeake has become nothing short of a fiasco. Some residents have reported that their growing pile of recyclables has sat on the roadside outside their homes for almost two months. It’s somewhat of a relief that the city stepped in last week and pushed its recycling vendor to the curb — not just to the legion of frustrated residents but to the owner of the recycling company who knew he couldn’t do the job the city hired him to do.
On Wednesday afternoon, Michael Benedetto, the owner of TFC Recycling, received an email from the city of Chesapeake that his contract was going to be terminated early and that he should stop collecting recycling.
Benedetto doesn’t have any animosity toward the city. In fact, he’s ready to step aside at this point.
Benedetto said his company tried its best, but contended that a perfect storm of problems upended the recycling program. The city’s decision to terminate the contract led to an exodus of drivers — who are already in short supply — just as supply chain issues made it difficult to find and repair trucks, he has said.
Benedetto said his staff rented every available vehicle, bought parts on eBay at two to three times what would’ve been a fair price, worked extra hours, held training for new drivers, and issued retention and sign-on bonuses to drivers.
Asked if there was anything he wanted to say to Chesapeake residents, Benedetto said he was very apologetic that the service was going away and recycling will not be as easily accessible, but he did not take full responsibility.
“We’re a small family business,” he said. “We live and die by our reputation.”
Benedetto and the city are in agreement that TFC will not be paid for work that has not been completed.
Benedetto said he offered to continue collecting recycling for free past June 30, when the contract was initially supposed to end, or to take off the city’s hands all the material it collects over the next couple days. The city rejected the first offer and hasn’t responded to the second, he said.
Jason Brown, customer service manager for the city’s public works department, said the contract was canceled by the city manager “due to TFC simply not honoring or performing the terms of the contract” since around early May.
City Manager Christopher Price said in an email that TFC had “every opportunity to remedy the situation,” but failed to do so. He also noted that allowing TFC to perform work outside the contract would have confused the public, exposed the city to liability and “almost certainly result in blue bins remaining uncollected.”
With TFC out of the picture, the city plans to bring staff in on Saturday and Monday — days that are normally not collection days — to work overtime picking up the recycling as if it were trash. On Tuesday, it will begin collecting under the normal trash schedule. The city anticipates collection of the recycling as trash will be completed by the end of next week.
To handle the extra work, as well as the long-term increase in the amount of waste the city will need to collect, they have hired new drivers and rented trucks, Brown said.
But that doesn’t change residents’ frustration from the past two months.
Demetra Frink’s recycling in Chesapeake was finally picked up last week, but it took 16 days of contacting the city and the recycling contractor every single day. She’s still upset. In her opinion, ending the recycling contract is a step in the wrong direction. And the current solution of picking it up as trash makes the city’s commitment to being clean and green look like “rubbish,” she said.
“I’ve never been more embarrassed to be a Chesapeake resident,” Frink said.
Though residents can now pay for recycling services, Frink doesn’t plan to sign up. As a taxpayer she doesn’t think she should have to pay extra for recycling. She also said gas is too expensive to drive to one of the city’s new drop off sites. Instead, she may take her cardboard and aluminum to be recycled at her mother-in-law’s house in Virginia Beach.