Granite Shoals picks up pieces in issue-filled trash cart switch
A trailer of Waste Management trash carts parked in the Granite Shoals equipment yard. City staff members have been picking up and dropping off carts to residents who were unserved during the recent Waste Management trash cart rollout process. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
Granite Shoals officials have taken it upon themselves to sort out the bungled Waste Management trash cart replacement process that has gone weeks beyond its initial completion date. On Feb. 6, city staff began collecting excess trash carts strewn across town and delivering carts to residents who never received them as promised by trash service provider Waste Management. The city plans to continue until the matter is resolved.
Interim City Manager Peggy Smith instructed Streets and Parks Department staff to begin collecting trash carts and delivering them as needed in response to numerous complaints and requests from residents who either had too few trash carts or too many. The entire process was supposed to be handled by Waste Management, which originally claimed it would be done between Jan. 9 and Jan. 13.
“We just had so many people calling and turning in work orders to Waste Management,” Smith told DailyTrib.com. “We just weren’t getting results quick enough. I made the decision that we would start picking up and distributing trash cans.”
Smith is asking any Granite Shoals residents who need trash carts delivered or picked up to contact the city at 830-598-2424 or citysecretary@graniteshoals.org.
Waste Management Senior Account Executive Matt Myers attended the Jan. 24 City Council meeting and took responsibility for the botched cart deliveries. Myers and Smith worked out a system in which residents could file work orders through the city, which then would be passed on to Waste Management.
According to Smith, orders were not being fulfilled quickly enough.
“My concern is to get my customers a trash can who didn’t have one,” Smith said. “Not having a trash can is something that affects everybody.”
The trash cart replacement process in Granite Shoals was out of the norm and riddled with challenges such as faulty population counts and hard-to-find addresses, Myers told DailyTrib.com.
“Every deployment has some issues, but with Granite Shoals, this was more than to be expected,” he said.
Waste Management contracted Cascade Cart Solutions for the delivery of the new WM-branded carts and the pickup of the old trash carts, which led to much of the confusion, according to Myers.
More calls and requests for carts are expected in March due to the high number of vacation homes in the city whose owners were not present for the initial cart rollout and will be arriving for Spring Break. Waste Management preemptively provided the city with an additional 40 carts so they can be quickly distributed to the part-time residents.
“Ultimately, it should go back to where (Waste Management) is handling everything,” Myers said.