Garbage trouble spurs trash talk
Complaints are piling up in Germantown
Germantown’s waste management company has 60 days to improve service after a slew of complaints from residents in the last two months.
The contract with Inland Waste Solutions allows for up to 100 complaints per month. In the month of May, the city fielded 755 calls about trash, recycling or yard waste that had not been picked up. While June numbers haven’t been tallied, City Administrator Patrick Lawton said it was over 700 again. Residents have also taken to social media to express frustration with trash not being collected consistently.
The contract, worth $3,138,800 a year, allows for the city to terminate the agreement if the company does not fulfill its obligations, but Lawton said they are giving Inland 60 days to improve. The clock started July 1.
“It’s frustrating,” Lawton said. “We just want them to fulfill the contract.”
Jerry Church, vice
president of operations for Inland’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, said a recent rerouting of drivers caused the hiccups, although he would not say why the rerouting was necessary. The company took over the contract from Republic Services in October, which caused a spike in complaints as drivers learned their routes.
Lawton said those misses were understandable, but now that they’ve been in the city for eight months, “it’s not the level of service that we’re going to tolerate.”
Church said he fully expects to meet the city’s expectations by the end of the 60-day period.
“We’re already starting to see a positive turnaround this week,” he said.
Church said he has met with city leaders about the issues and ways that both sides can improve collections.
“We are working with the city on a daily basis to serve the residents of Germantown,” he said.
The city has about 11 months remaining on the contract. Lawton said Inland officials have expressed that they want to keep the contract.
“They assured us they were going to do everything they needed to do to fix the problems,” he said.