Recent changes to Waste Connections of Washington’s Recyle-Plus program is leaving some Clark County customers with missed or delayed trash and recycling pickups.
According to the company’s website, pickup dates listed in the calendar feature of its RecycleRight app may be incorrect because of recent service changes.
Barrett Hathaway, who lives in the Minnehaha neighborhood, said getting answers from Waste Connections about when and how often trash and recycling will be picked up has been frustrating.
When calling the customer service number, “if you wait for 40 minutes they’ll eventually pick up,” he said. “If you leave a voice mail, it’s usually about three days for us to get a call back.”
Hathaway said that after the last regular trash and recycling pickup on Aug. 8, he received a notification on his phone that his pickup day was changing to Friday. The notice also said pickups were scheduled for the next Monday and Friday while the service date change was implemented.
Monday came and went, but he said none of the trash in his neighborhood was picked up. On Friday, he said, trash was picked up but not recycling.
“The recycling vehicle came down to our intersection, sat there for two or three minutes … then did a U-turn and left,” Hathaway said.
Frustrated by the growing amounts of trash in his neighborhood, Hathaway did what most people would do: He called the company’s customer service department.
“Sometimes they would say recycling is going to bi-weekly now; sometimes they’d say it’s going to be weekly. One time they told my wife it was going to be bi-weekly, but if we ask for a bigger recycling container, they’ll drop one off,” Hathaway said. “That was really confusing. No one could tell us what our dates were.”
Similar reports about missed or confusing service in Battle Ground, La Center and other areas have been posted on social media in recent weeks.
Hathaway eventually decided to visit the Waste Connections office in person to see if he could straighten out the problem. He said the customer service representative told him mailers had been sent to all customers and robocalls had gone out, but Hathaway disputes that.
“Our neighborhood didn’t get a mailer, because all of the trash is still here. Everyone was under the same impression I was,” Hathaway said. “The entire neighborhood was filled with containers, so no one got these calls or mailers.”
Having the neighborhood’s trash and recycling sit out on the curb for days, a week or longer was more than an eyesore. Hathaway is concerned that along with attracting pests, it could attract identify thieves.
“I started thinking, ‘What is in that container that I should have shredded? Did I just go through some mail and throw it in there?’ Someone might go through it and find some significance to it,” he said.
The week of Aug. 29, the trash was picked up, but recycling was not. Hathway said he was told a special pickup would be done and from then on pickups would be done weekly. While he’s hopeful that this brings an end to all the confusion, having another holiday weekend around the corner — and the chance of more delays — gave him pause.
“It’s not a 10-out-of-10 disaster or anything, but the worst part is it’s so hard to get through to them. We were just trying to get a simple answer,” Hathaway said.
Calls to Waste Connections for comment were not returned.
For information or contact numbers for Waste Connections of Washington, go to https://wcnorthwest.com.
