When Will Waste Pro Start Picking Up Garbage Again in Port St Lucie
ST. LUCIE COUNTY — For more than a yr, thousands of Waste material Pro customers here have grumbled well-nigh poor service ranging from late to repeatedly missed trash pickups.
At present, as summer storms pummel the Treasure Declension, delays have worsened; threatening to end two of the garbage company's contracts.
"Conditions is always a factor in Florida, and nosotros work with Waste Pro to use their call-notification organization whenever there are delays," said urban center spokesperson Sarah Prohaska.
Both Port St. Lucie and county are pleading for customers' patience and request them to leave garbage out for either late collection or early collection the next day.
Moreover, in unincorporated county neighborhoods where waste matter drove was missed this week, customers are asked to put their trash bins out between 7 a.m. and 8:30 p.thou. if possible, officials said in a news release.
Trash pickup in a pandemic:Stay-at-home residents boosting trash pickups 13% in Port St. Lucie, St. Lucie County
Complaints and trash piling upwardly
Pelting, thunder and lightning caused delays this calendar week, but customers here have been lament of late and missed pickups since the showtime of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It'due south gotten so bad — reflected by virtually 8,700 complaints Waste Pro received from St. Lucie County customers between January 2020 and March — that the county has fined the company $176,750 since January 2020.
Both trash and complaints also are piling up in Port St. Lucie. There were recently 89 missed routes within a two-week menses and roughly 1,100 complaints in one calendar month, City Councilwoman Shannon Martin said at a meeting Monday.
8,700 complaints: Customers dissatisfied with trash pickups, will St. Lucie cut ties with Waste product Pro?
"In that location is no alibi when y'all have residents writing that for three weeks in a row Waste Pro didn't show upward...," Martin said. "Service is severely lacking. They need to fix their operations."
Like the canton, Port St. Lucie has imposed administrative charges, or withheld payments, equivalent to $687,200 from May 1 to June 19. In all of 2020, by comparison, administrative charges imposed on Waste material Pro by the city amounted to $240,000.
Worker shortage
Waste product Pro officials attribute its struggles to a staffing shortage amid the COVID-xix pandemic, specifically a scarcity of eligible, licensed, professional person drivers.
"Contempo and ongoing changes to unemployment benefits, combined with stimulus checks and other enhanced government-assist programs, brand information technology more than attractive for many people to not work rather than to get upward daily and work in a manually labor-intensive surroundings, such as ours," Waste material Pro said in a statement last month.
Equally Waste Pro grapples with a staffing shortage, it said the company is actively recruiting drivers past increasing its presence at local job fairs and launching retention and new-driver referral bonuses.
Volition Waste product Pro lose its contracts?
The situation has left some questioning whether the city and county should cut ties with Waste material Pro. Some expressed gratitude for the garbage truck drivers on social media while others shared words of frustration.
"Our calls to request assistance are totally ignored," wrote Dora Manchon on the canton's Facebook mail service. "We appreciate our sanitation workers. All the same, the fact that requests for assistance are completely disregarded hints at problems far in a higher place the pay class of the boots on the basis."
The County Committee on April thirteen discussed giving the visitor 6-months to improve its performance or the county would consider its options.
The end of the probationary period has not still been adamant, county officials said. Notwithstanding, the canton's Solid Waste material Division meets with Waste Pro twice a calendar month to discuss improvements and progress, according to canton spokesperson Erick Gill.
In Port St. Lucie, the City Council this week put Waste Pro on observe. If it fails to provide the city with a plan for how information technology will improve services by June 30, Port St., Lucie, besides, may explore other options.
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Another solution, suggested by Mayor Greg Oravec, called for using the money collected in administrative charges for client rebates.
"Let's utilize that money to cutting a check for all customers of Port St. Lucie, who have had to put upwards with this substandard service," Oravec said. "This is a bones service; information technology has got to be done at a loftier level."
How to ensure your trash is nerveless
- If your normal collection day is Friday or Sabbatum and information technology wasn't nerveless, leave your waste curbside for Sunday pickup.
- Containerize every bit much waste material as possible. This will reduce the chance of your pile being left behind.
- Residents of unincorporated canton can drib off their waste for free at the St. Lucie County Baling & Recycling Facility, 6120 Glades Cutting Off Road. Telephone call 772-462-1768 for pre-authorization.
- To report a service delay or to request a majority pickup, go to https://world wide web.stlucieco.gov/departments-services/a-z/solid-waste/waste matter-pro-customer-service.
- Port St. Lucie residents experiencing service issues should call Lois Cardinale, Waste material Pro liaison, 772-873-6317.
Olivia McKelvey is TCPalm's watchdog reporter for St. Lucie Canton. You lot tin achieve her at olivia.mckelvey@tcpalm.com, 772-521-4380 and on Twitter @olivia_mckelvey.
Source: https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/2021/06/23/waste-pro-lose-contracts-st-lucie-county-and-psl-poor-services/5320269001/
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