Charlie Lauersdorf has thought about changing his email signature to include an apology for missed trash service. That’s how many complaints he regularly receives from residents about their garbage not getting picked up, the Fort Worth City Council member said last month.
The growing frustration prompted Lauersdorf to ask city staff how Fort Worth could address concerns over trash pickup. He points the finger at Knight Waste Services, which serves many of his constituents in north Fort Worth, and Waste Management, which hires Knight as one of its subcontractors. Waste Management has a $479 million contract to deliver trash and recycling services in Fort Worth.
“I’m absolutely ready to declare war on this whole process,” Lauersdorf said during an April council meeting. “We need to hold them accountable. I understand they’re being fined, but they are garbage, all pun intended.”
Three weeks later, during a May 7 council work session, environmental services director Cody Whittenburg revealed the scale of the problem. Waste Management and its contractors make about 1.1 million service attempts each month, according to city data. Between October and March, the city recorded about 1,600 missed collections each month.
If Waste Management was meeting industry standards, that number would not exceed 1,100, Whittenburg said.
“As we’ve heard from our residents, as we’ve heard from complaints and concerns that we’ve experienced or witnessed ourselves, there is a concern for just the general disregard for customers and the standard of care that we’re able to provide currently,” Whittenburg said.
Reports of missed pickups are worse for residents with disabilities. The city wants its contractors to report one or less missed trash collections per 1,000 disabled customers each month. On average, people with disabilities reported 29.17 missed collections per 1,000 customers each month between October and March.
Lauersdorf, who has frequently experienced missed trash collections at his home, said he wasn’t surprised by the data. In his district alone, there were 3,476 missed collections reported through the MyFW app over the past year.
“It’s gone on for way too long, and so that’s why I’ve been very vocal about it,” Lauersdorf told the Report. “No more, ‘Hey, we’re going to try to do better, we’re working with them.’ I don’t want to hear any more excuses. I just want to see action.”
A representative for Knight Waste Services said they could not comment at this time.
Working with Waste Management representatives, Whittenburg’s team has developed a seven-step plan to address trash service issues. The environmental services team will:
- Reaffirm customer service expectations with city staff and contractors.
- Improve daily communication about incomplete trash routes.
- Help residents report missed collections.
- Resolve missed collections quickly and efficiently.
- Leverage technology and route monitoring for customers with disabilities.
- Instruct Waste Management and its contractors to repair all equipment.
- Adjust contract requirements to help Waste Management cover incomplete routes.
Under current contract requirements, 25% of Waste Management’s subcontracts must go to minority-owned businesses. When reports of missed trash pickups went up last year, the city gave Waste Management a six-month waiver that reduced minority-owned business requirements.
That waiver allowed Waste Management to take over trash routes from Knight Waste Services, a minority-owned business, in an attempt to deliver service on a more consistent basis, Whittenburg said in an April interview. The city has not ruled out extending the waiver, which expires May 8, Whittenburg said.
“We’ve seen that missed collections can occur pretty frequently, but a large number of missed collections, that’s when the data starts to suggest that there needs to be some changes,” Whittenburg said last month. “And we need to work with Waste Management, and ultimately they work with us and Knight Waste Services, to make some adjustments.”
The city may need to waive the minority-owned business requirement entirely if it allows Waste Management to resolve service issues, Lauersdorf said. He’s frustrated that Waste Management, a global corporation, has not been able to solve the “systemic problem” with missed collections.
Lauersdorf said he demanded an aggressive timeline for improvement. By the end of the year, he said, this problem should no longer be an issue.
“I do understand that Knight, whenever they have the missed collections, they pay liquidated damages back to the city,” he said. “But the residents, they don’t see that. They’re still paying for the service, and they’re not getting a refund. They’re not getting a discount. They’re not getting anything back.”
Haley Samsel is the environmental reporter for the Fort Worth Report. You can reach them at haley.samsel@fortworthreport.org.
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