TMCnet News

Trash Talk
[April 18, 2012]

Trash Talk


Apr 18, 2012 (Ashland Daily Tidings - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Some residents say Ashland's garbage service has gone downhill since Recology took over three years ago, but the trash collector insists there is more to the picture.



Residents are complaining that their trash cans and Dumpsters are no longer being picked up in alleyways or from gated areas behind private property lines, and that truck operators are leaving containers in an unorganized fashion along the street after picking up the trash.

Recology's franchise agreement with the city of Ashland is the same as the one Ashland Sanitary Service operated under before the San Francisco-based Recology took the helm in October 2009, said Steve DeFabion, Recology's general manager in Ashland.


"We didn't overtly change any policies," said DeFabion. "In Ashland "... there is no one policy that would fit every situation." The city is waiting on the return on an analysis of Recology's services to determine whether an 11.2 percent rate increase the City Council approved this year is justified.

DeFabion said many of the former service's pickup routes have been redesigned in order for Recology to operate more efficiently, and larger trucks have been placed on routes so drivers can operate for a longer duration without offloading trash.

"We're obviously under a fair amount of pressure to keep rates low," he said. "Well, the faster the trash gets collected, the lower the rates stay." Ashland resident Tasha Schaal, who lives on the 600 block of Roca Street, said Ashland Sanitary picked up her trash from the alley beside her home for the last seven years. That stopped about a month ago, she said, when Recology informed her that its truck would no longer include the alley in its route.

Now, Recology wants Schaal and her neighbor, Steve Fields, to take their trash to the end of the alley, so that the truck can pick it up on Roca Street.

A low-hanging madrone tree has a gash in it from the garbage truck scrapping against it when entering the alley, said Steve Ekwall, operations supervision for Recology. That's the reason the garbage service will no longer come down the alley, he said.

Schaal has had back surgery and said her 32-gallon container is too much for her to safely lug down the gravel hill.

DeFabion said once-small vegetation growing alongside alleys, such as the madrone tree blocking Schaal's alley, has matured now, making it harder for today's garbage truck to pass.

Instead of trimming the tree, Schaal decided that a container with wheels would be easier for her to take to the street from her driveway. Recology will provide that kind of container, said Ekwall, who met with Schaal on Monday.

Fields said taking his trash can to the street is no problem, but he thinks the company could have communicated its reasons for the change better than through an abrupt telephone message.

"It just seems like Recology is looking for every opportunity to get you for something," he said. "And they are ill-receptive as far as feedback goes." Fields said he has complained numerous times about his container and its lid being messily returned to the area on the street where he leaves it for pickup. His lid has been run over a few times, he said.

"Three times I called them," he said. "And what they say is, 'There's no way to prove our driver did that.'" "What do they want me to do, videotape it?" he asked.

Schaal and local businessman Brent Thompson said they are also fed up with the "rude" attitudes of the call takers at Recology.

DeFabion said any customers who feel their concerns aren't being fully addressed by drivers or the company's front office staff should ask to speak with a manager.

Thompson, who owns two apartment buildings Recology services, as well as other business-front properties in Ashland's downtown area and Railroad District, said Recology quit picking up his containers in a gated area behind one of his apartment building's property lines, which Ashland Sanitary had always done.

First, Recology stopped wheeling Thompson's Dumpster to the curb, because it was too near cars, Thompson said. So he replaced that Dumpster with two carts he could wheel himself.

DeFabion said lugging around heavy Dumpsters through parking lots, sometimes filled with cars, is a liability for the company, because the rough-rolling Dumpsters have been known to veer off course.

Recology does have a new no-pick-up policy for containers left in sheltered and screened areas off the street, said DeFabion.

"I think the biggest problem there was that it probably wasn't very well communicated on our part," he said.

DeFabion has a meeting scheduled with Thompson on Wednesday, and the two will work through the concerns in person at the properties, he said.

"If there is a situation that we need to be accommodating, and we're dealing with someone that needs that accommodation, we'll do it," said DeFabion. "The intent certainly is not to penalize anyone who is not able to bring a can to the curb "... but if somebody is an able-bodied person, they really need to work together with us to get their cans out on the street." It's the same policy Ashland's garbage service has always had, and what the majority of cities in the Unites States are required to do for their trash to be picked up, said DeFabion.

He said the first day Recology took over Ashland Sanitary, one of its trucks broke a limb out of a tree along an alley off A Street. The broken limb caused about $9,000 worth of damage to the truck, and another $8,000 to private property and city-owned power lines, he said.

"We want to do the best job we can with the funds that are available "... and absolutely anyone who needs assistance, we'll work with them," he said.

Recology can be reached at 541-482-1471.

Reach reporter Sam Wheeler at 541-499-1470 or email [email protected].

___ (c)2012 The Ashland Daily Tidings (Ashland, Ore.) Visit The Ashland Daily Tidings (Ashland, Ore.) at www.dailytidings.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]