Mayor’s Update Regarding Issues With Garbage Collection in East Amwell
On Monday, July 1st, in response to complaints I received from residents regarding Republic Services’ failure to collect their garbage and recyclables, I contacted Republic.
After being handed off several times from person to person, and disconnected twice, I finally spoke with Brad Hayman, a supervisor at Republic. I explained the situation to Brad, who was located in Indiana and had no idea where East Amwell Township was located.
Brad told me that Republic is experiencing “growing pains” as a result of its acquisition of Premier, another waste hauling company in our area, and that there was nothing he could do to help us. Basically, Brad’s response was that Republic will get to us when they get to us.
I was flabbergasted by Brad’s response. Brad, while perfectly friendly, didn’t seem to care one iota. He kept telling me there’s nothing he could do.
I asked whether I could speak to a local supervisor -- a supervisor who oversees the accounts in East Amwell. Brad told me no.
A Republic driver told our DPW Supervisor earlier this week that when Republic purchased Premier, Republic acquired a significant number of new accounts, but inherited a fleet of run down trucks and drivers who, for one reason or another, did not satisfy Republic’s standards. As a result, Republic is unable to service all the new accounts, which is creating problems for the existing Republic accounts. Republic is in the process of hiring additional drivers and purchasing additional trucks.
I don’t know whether this is true, but it certainly would explain why our service from Republic, which wasn’t particularly good to begin with, has gone downhill significantly.
As I understand it, other municipalities are experiencing the same problems with Republic.
I’m going to contact the County and the Mayors of the surrounding municipalities and see if anything can be done about Republic’s poor service and whether viable alternatives are available to us.
Stay tuned.
Rick Wolfe
Mayor