Republic Services review: Not a “green” trash service at all!!!

We have heavy trash pick up one day a month. A couple of days before my heavy trash pick up a severe storm came in that split one of our trees and 2/3 of it came down. To clean up the yard as best as we could a chipper was used to reduce the tree debris and it was placed in large black yard trash bags. These bags held quite a bit of confetti size tree clippings, and weighed greater than 40 pounds each. Being a nice person, I placed those heavy trash bags inside my trash container that the garbage truck picks up using the mechanical arm. I did not want to have their employee have to lift three of those heavy bags which would’ve been 150 to 200 pounds combined into the truck. Needless to say those bags filled up my required Republic’s trashcan. I called Republic services and ask about setting out a separate can just to throw a few of our regular trash bags inside the garbage can to be hand loaded into the dumpster of the truck. The customer service employee stated that that was fine because they pick up sofas, chairs, washers, dryers, etc. so lifting a trash can with no loading bar up and dumping two 15 gallon kitchen trash bags would be easy, right? Well guess wha? Their pickup guy refused to pick up the trashcan and dump it into the trash dumpster of the truck. Instead the worker took the whole trashcan, lifted it up with the mechanical arms and threw it all in, can and all! This was a brand new trashcan that has been used only in our house and was very clean. It was not something you would look at and say yeah that’s trash, so when I saw the truck driving away with my trashcan in the dumpster. I had to run down the trash truck driver to make him stop the truck to give me back my can. I asked him what the heck he was doing and why he would throw away a perfectly good brand new looking trashcan. He told me he’s not allowed to pick up trash cans and that if I wanted those trash bags picked up I had to set them individually on the ground next to my normal trash container. I brought to his attention that those were the kitchen bags and some of them had old food in it, which we all know what happens to trash bags sitting out on the pavement with food in it - rodents, dogs you name it. It would’ve been ripped open overnight. He explained to me that that was the rule and there was nothing he could do about it and drove off. So I called Republic and got a hold of a supervisor named Dwayne, who by the way said he’d call me back and he never did! Dwayne - total looser by the way, told me that they expect us to put trash bags on the ground and he said if they had food in it, they should’ve been inside my regular container and the yard waste should have been on the ground. But just imagine what would’ve happened if the guy tried to pick up a plastic bag with about 40+ pounds of chipped yard waste trying to lift that heavy weight up and over to throw it up into the truck dumpster. It would have probably ripped the bag and you know what would’ve been all over the road - a ton of chipped, wood and leaf debris, which I’m sure he would gladly drive off and leave the mess in my street. I told Dwayne that we put the trash bags with yard waste in the can because of the weight and was trying to be nice so that your employee didn’t have to pick those heavy bags up, but he explained to me that those should’ve been on the street on the curb for the guy to pick up. I told him if he would’ve ripped the bags that it t would’ve been their responsibility to clean up the mess. He told me no it would be my responsibility. It’s not their responsibility to clean up the mess from a ripped, heavy duty, trash bag that they ripped by their employee trying to pick it up.

I have been a Recycle Customer for years now I explained to Dwayne how can Republic be a “green company” that promotes recycling when they’re instructing people to put bags of trash out on the street to be ripped open by rodents or to blow when their employees tips the bags trying to lift them up and place in the dumpster of the truck. I live in a neighborhood with an HOA if a mess like that had been created by their stupid customer instructions it’s not my responsibility to clean that up because common sense tells you to put the bags in a receptacle so that rodents or accidental breakage of a bag is protected from spilling out all over the street. If a spillage like that had happened and the trash truck would just jolly leave and continue on its way there’s a high probability I would get fined by my HOA. I told them that I would hold them responsible to pay that damage fine from my HOA which Dwayne responded with “no we wouldn’t pay it” and I said yeah I’d see you in court because I would hold them responsible for their lack of prudence in picking up our trash. I then went on to tell him to cancel my recycle because I was no longer going to pay them money to in “good faith” be a green company because they have proven to me now that they’re not green. If they were green, they would show a concern on how to handle our trash bags in a manner that would not promote the littering of our trash in our sacks to spread over the streets. And you know you see trash every day flying around after the truck comes through cause just the truck alone blows, trash out - imagine what it’d be like with a full bag exploding on the street and the wind carrying it away - yeah not a pretty site!

So if I could give this company a negative star I would because Republic services you totally suck. You are not a green company and your policies you have for picking up trash bags is asinine. I will no longer recycle and I picked up an extra can with a lift bar that I’m placing at the end of my street for you to dump as trash now on big trash pick up day. And just so you know I have a recording of the conversation in case you’re questioning it, I called your office and asked if I could get a second trash can that has the bar for the machine to pick up my trash and I was told yes it would be able to be used so on my extra trash pick up day my trash will be protected. It will be in a can, and you will pick it up. And my can will contsin recycle items that will be treated as trash now. If I have time I may drop it off at a recycle site but a lot of it’s gonna go now in a trash dump somewhere because I’m not gonna send it to a company who probably isn’t even handling the recycle the way they should. How do we even know you’re not just taking our money and just picking up extra trash in recycle cans and throwing it in the dump sites anyway Kind of think that might be what’s going on!

Get a clue Rebublic because your company SUCKS!