MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland announces he sent Waste Pro a termination letter Sunday.
The mayor also says Team Waste will provide solid waste collection to residents in Cordova, Hickory Hill, and parts of East Memphis, also known as area E. In the termination letter, the mayor stated Waste Pro was in breach of contract for failure to provide contractually required services.
Additionally, in the letter, the mayor says the city of Memphis gave Waste Pro 20 days to cure its breach, and the company failed to do so.Waste Pro, which has faced criticism from Memphis residents and city officials over missed trash collection in parts of the city, said it wanted to end its contract with Memphis back in late March.
Residents in Area E, which covers Cordova, Hickory Hill, and parts of East Memphis have grown frustrated with the company because they said Waste Pro didn’t collect their trash.
One former Waste Pro customer we spoke to, Barbara Simmons, said she is happy the city terminated its contracted with the company after her experiences.
“It was days when they don’t come. It was days when they actually missed the whole street or a couple of streets,” Simmons said.
Simmons says she’s fed up with the service she’s received from Waste Pro USA. She says she’s gone up to three weeks without her trashed getting picked up, and the times she has seen them in her neighborhood, she had to flag them down and plead with them to collect her trash.
“They were just going to pass by. I got to the curb with my can and I’m like ‘[are] you guys going to do that?’ I guess they felt some type of sympathy or whatever and they stopped and backed up and got it,” Simmons said.
But she’s not alone in her frustration.
For months, WREG has told you countless stories of people who are frustrated with their trash not getting picked up on time. Just last week, city council committee members passed a resolution asking the mayor’s office to terminate the contract with Waste Pro.
It’s for these reasons, among several other reasons, Mayor Jim Strickland has finally decided to do just that.
In the termination letter sent to Waste Pro from the mayor’s office, Strickland says the company was given a written notice on March 15 that it was, “In breach of contract for failure to provide the contractually required services.”
Strickland says the company had complaint totals consistently above the allowable limits and failed to have adequate, qualified personnel providing all services required under the agreement.
According to the termination letter, waste pro was only allowed to 150 missed garbage missed or service quality incidents during the 20-day cure period, but instead, it racked up nearly 7,000 separate complaints.
