MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Residents around the city of Memphis are expressing frustration about garbage piling up in various neighborhoods.
For the neighborhood in and surrounding Maryland Circle in northeast Memphis, garbage pickup day is supposed to be Friday. But that’s hardly a guarantee.
“It’s now hard telling when it comes,” frustrated resident John Strange said. “It’s not consistent, and they’ve skipped a few weeks completely.”
We reached out to the city of Memphis and its contractor in this area, Waste Pro, after receiving several complaints.
City officials say Waste Pro is “having collection delays due to large volume” after the winter weather in February, and an additional day off this week for severe storms.
But residents are skeptical, saying these problems have existed for a long time now.
“I can’t even tell you when the last time that they picked up the garbage on our scheduled day was,” Strange said. “We were being skipped before COVID was ever a thing.”
The city says Waste Pro is working Saturday and Sunday to make up for lost time. But even if they catch up on missed assignments, it doesn’t make up for the weeks of trash pileups that residents have dealt with.
Whether or not service improved, residents say they’d like to be compensated for services that were not delivered.
“They take it out, you have no choice not to pay it, but we’re not receiving the services that we’ve paid for. So, I think a credit is due,” Strange said.
Waste Pro has not responded for comment.
Memphis 311 lists more than 2,000 open complaints of garbage pickup missed in the past 30 days. While reports came in across the city, they were concentrated in the Hickory Hill/Fox Meadows areas and northeast Memphis/Cordova areas.