NEWS & EVENTS

For the last several weeks, I have received many complaints and I have talked with our primary contact at Waste Management several times about the missed pickups throughout our community. Waste Management has said they are struggling to pick up everything because during the pandemic they have been severely understaffed. They have offered hiring bonuses to get the staff they need, but they are still understaffed for the work they need to do. Our City is not the only ones who are having this problem; Jacksonville, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, and Orange Park/Clay County are having the same issues.

I have also talked with representatives from other waste service providers (Waste Pro and Waste Connections) and they said they are having the same staffing issues. They have also offered signing bonuses and are having to move staff around to try to get the work done; and they are struggling to get the waste picked up on schedule.

Ultimately, they all have told me they have had to prioritize pick up of house waste over yard waste because house waste is most likely to cause health and quality of life issues if not picked up (i.e. smell, rodents, bugs, etc.). So, they are doing everything they can to make sure the house waste gets picked up as scheduled.

The City Council will be discussing this issue on October 11. The challenge is that all the other waste service providers have staffing issues. So, the concern is that changing providers is not going to address the underlying issue that the providers don't have the staff to do all the work. The City doesn't have the equipment or the staffing to pick up the waste, either.

Until we can come up with a solution to the problem, our Public Works department has been assessing penalties against Waste Management for their failure to provide the services they are contracted to provide. So, please continue to email Public Works at publicworks@jaxbchfl.net when you have a waste pickup issue so they can document all the missed pickups.

I am sorry we don't have any solutions to the problem today - other than we are very well of the problem and will be discussing this further to determine what we can do to address this problem.

As a "temporary solution", how would you feel about a temporary change to the yard waste pickup schedule to once or twice a month (instead of every week) while this staffing problem exists? My hope would be that reducing the frequency could temporarily improve Waste Management's ability to pick up the waste on time. This would also help citizens to know the dates they can expect their waste to be picked up. As it stands now, the waste goes out to the road and sits there for weeks in hopes someone will pick it up. If citizens know it will be picked up on specific days, you can plan to put their waste out on that date and not worry about how long it will be sitting at the curb.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me at sgolding@jaxbchfl.net. ... See MoreSee Less