Eight months ago, the Los Angeles City Council voted to overhaul the way trash is picked up at tens of thousands of businesses and large residential buildings, giving the work exclusively to a select group of companies.
Backers of the program, championed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, said the new system would increase recycling, roll out cleaner-fuel trash trucks and improve workplace safety for sanitation workers.
But the new program, known as RecycLA, is not being universally welcomed by the businesses and residents who will rely on it for their trash pickup. In recent weeks, customers have begun complaining about soaring prices, uncollected trash and calls to their new waste hauling companies going unreturned.
One of those frustrated customers is Janet Garstang, who lives in a 14-unit condominium building in West Los Angeles. Garstang, president of the homeowner association, said she has been told to expect an 80% increase in her building’s monthly bill — $428, up from $238 — unless she finds a way to cut back on service.
“Where are we supposed to get that money from? We have a budget down to the penny for our expenses for this year,” she said.
The complaints don’t stop at price. Garstang said her building’s recyclables have gone uncollected for five weeks. The new trash hauler, she said, has also so far shown a poor record of returning calls and showing up for appointments. “There’s only been one time when they showed up when they were supposed to,” she said.
L.A. sanitation officials say they expected some glitches in the short term as RecycLA is rolled out. The transition, which began in April and won’t be complete until February, is moving 80,000 businesses and larger residential buildings — those with five or more units — into a new and complicated system aimed at cutting the amount of garbage sent to landfills.
So far, city officials say they are fielding around 90 calls a day about missed garbage collection. But they insist the issue is being addressed promptly. Haulers are learning new routes, meeting with customers and obtaining key codes for automated garages, said Dan Meyers, one of the sanitation officials overseeing the changes.
“I would actually characterize the transition as going well. And I characterize it as going well because of the fact that we have already moved a large number of customers through the system,” said Meyers, who manages his agency’s solid resources commercial franchise division.
Still, Meyers acknowledged that West Los Angeles has been a hot spot for service problems. Councilman Paul Koretz, who represents part of the Westside, estimated that his office has received 200 complaint calls about the new system so far — many of them about trash that went uncollected.
To read the full story, visit http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-trash-pickup-franchises-20170807-story.html.