Fuel surcharge my trash
I think I'm going to refuse to pay the fuel surcharge on my trash service bill.
I just watched our trash guy pick up the trash. It used to be, the trash truck had three guys on it... a driver and two guys to grab the carts and dump them. They'd pull up into an area, the driver would sit in the truck, and the other two guys would run back and forth hauling carts. Then they'd move on.
Two or three years ago, Waste Connections decided to cut costs by reducing the crew to one man. Now the driver has to get out of the truck and haul all the carts himself. That doesn't sound so bad, until you watch him do it.
He pulls up next to my cart, gets out and runs all the way around the truck to get my cart, dumps it and puts it back. Then he runs all the way back around the truck, gets it, drives it FIFTEEN FEET to my neighbor's cart and does it again. All the way up the street. Getting only the carts on one side. Then he comes back down the street the other way to get the carts on the other side.
When he's parked in front of my driveway, there are three or four of his company's trash carts within easy hauling distance... he could leave the truck parked there and get them all from one spot. But instead, he moves the truck for each cart, revving up that big engine to move the truck as little as fifteen feet at a time. And I don't think he's saving time... he spends as much time running around the truck at each cart as he would fetching each cart from a central location.
What a waste. They've cut their crews to a third, while at the same time the cost of my trash service has doubled in three years. I know some of that is increased costs at the landfill being passed on to me... but the majority of it is operating expenses and a "fuel surcharge".
Time to check the prices of the few competitors Waste Connections has left. And maybe start parking my cart next to the neighbor's.