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North Escambia Won’t Have Recycling Containers When ECUA Service Starts
December 29, 2008
When ECUA takes over residential trash service in North Escambia next week, area residents will be missing their recyclable containers.
The Emerald Coast Utilities Authority’s service, which replaces Allied Waste in the entire area except for the Town of Century, is suppose to include a once per week pickup of a trash container and a recyclable container. But it will be up to two weeks or more before the recyclable containers are delivered in North Escambia.
“We are delivering the recyclable containers as the requests come in,” ECUA spokesperson Natalie Bowers told NorthEscambia.com. Some in the ECUA service signed up months ago, but North Escambia residents were unable to sign up for ECUA’s recycling service until the end of December.
Those in the regular ECUA service area in the southern half of Escambia County that signed up earlier in the year have had their recycling containers already delivered. But ECUA’s customer service agents were unable to take signups from North Escambia Allied Waste customers until the last half of December.
North Escambia residents that had been using Allied Waste will see their service change from up 180 gallons per week of waste to the one 90 gallon trash container and recyclable container in size up to 90 gallons.
“Your total volume does not go down,” Bowers said. “It has not been cut in half.”
But with no container, there’s no recyclable pickup, Bowers acknowledged. She said ECUA did not order a huge number of recyclable containers in advance in order to better spend funds; ECUA did not want to have a large number of unused containers on hand.
Enough containers to supply the North Escambia residents that have signed up for recycling service should be on hand and delivered within one to two weeks after service begins on January 6, she said.
Across the entire ECUA service territory and the Allied Service area in North Escambia, only about 15% of the 73,000 residential waste customers have signed up for the recycling program.
“The sooner people sign up for the recycling container, the sooner it will be delivered,” Bowers said. Allied Waste customers can call 476-0480 or email support@ecua.org with their name, address and desired size — 40, 64 or 90 gallon — recyclable container.
All Allied Waste customers in North Escambia, except those in the Town of Century, will become ECUA customers. Pickup day for all customers north of Kingsfield Road will be Tuesday.
ECUA customers in North Escambia will receive the same services offered to current ECUA residential customers, including yard waste pickup and free once-per-month bulky waste pickup services.
The rate for ECUA service will be $17.99 per month, a reduction from $19.62 charged by Allied Waste. A small fuel charge will be added to the base rate. ECUA will offer a seniors rate of $15.08 to households in which the ECUA account is in the name of a resident who is 65 years old or older. To receive this reduced rate, one must accept use of a 60-gallon can rather than the standard 90-gallon can, and the customer must contact the ECUA Customer Service Department at 476-0480, to request the Seniors rate. A “lifeline” rate will be offered at $8.57 per month for very low income customers.
Comments
25 Responses to “North Escambia Won’t Have Recycling Containers When ECUA Service Starts”
Those of us on the West side of town are no better off than residents in the North part of the county! We requested our can weeks ago and have yet to get one. I don’t think anyone else in our neighborhood has either.
We live on Schaag and received our recycling can Friday afternoon.
I have noted the comments made to this time. ECUA will be working on January 2-3 to distribute as many recyclables containers as possible. Let’s see how things look after that. I hope that we will see that many customers’ requested cans will be provided by the end of day, Saturday.
Meanwhile, I have asked ECUA management to check out the correctness of the message (or messages) that ECUA CSRs are giving out regarding the distribution of recyclables containers in North Escambia. It may be that the reported messages–of delayed distribution of recyclables containers in North Escambia–are outdated or just flat incorrect. I will have more to report on that element of the situation on January 2, after management has reported back to me.
I am very sensitive to the accusation that ECUA is being unfair to North Escambia customers. I will look into these accusations and report back to NorthEscambia.com readers. Meanwhile, I invite direct communication from any and all unhappy or concerned citizens. Email may be sent to lwalker@ecua.org, and my telephone number is 723-6094.
Let’s talk trash, not trash about people. Keep the comments to trash and recycling related topics, not people.
William
Admin
Here’s to you Xtina! I guess you are the expert recycler on here. Just for your info I am the one who put the comments on here about twins. You don’t know anything about what goes on in my house. The problem this article addresses is the fact that we won’t be getting recycle cans for 4 to 5 weeks. All you did was to dredge up old news so you could make a personal attack on someone. It’s people like you that love to stir up trouble!!!
Xtina, yes I “dropped” twins. And yes, they require a lot of diapers, yes that’s how it’s spelled. But I personally am not the one on this site complaining about this entire Allied Waste/ECUA debacle and would appreciate it if you would keep my children out of your little comments.
To Xtina – The whole point of the article and every comment made is about ECUA not being prepared to supply the can to put the recycling in. Therefore, we still have the same amount of trash but with one less can/pickup per week FOR THE NEXT 5 WEEKS. Read the article. Read the comments. Again…..
I have been recycling for years, both paper and plastic, and doing so reduces my actual ‘trash’ output by two thirds. Geniuses, the whole point of reducing your pickup by half is to get you to recycle the other half, which you won’t do voluntarily. So you have to pay for it. Just like I get to reap the consequences of all the people flooding the landfills with diapers (sp?), then I have to suffer through those same people getting on this site and talking about how this new policy is so unfair to them because they chose to drop twins. Burn your trash and invite the kids and grandkids over when you do it. Good luck with all that!
I have lived in the Cantonment/Cottage hill area since 1994 & have been very satisfied with the garbage pickup service. In those years I think I have only had to call twice to request a pickup that was missed. Yes, Allied charges a bit more than what ECUA will charge for one container, one day a week pickup – but, hey, give us a break we know that – if anyone requests an extra regular 90 gallon container its going to cost more for per month in the long run for the same gallon amount of garbage. Saving us money – yeah right! Also just think of the “HOLIDAY TRASH”, we are ALL going to have fun during those seasons!!
Who has been complaining about allied waste? We have had allied waste service ever since we have had garbage pickup, 13 years (i think), and we have never had any complaints about there service. They have always picked our garbage up, there have been a few times when they came early and I didn’t have the garbage can out by the road, but that was my fault, because they tell you to have it out there by a certain time.
Well, I hope all those people that complained about Allied are happy now. I don’t see where this service is going to be better in any way. I for one was happy with my service from Allied, now I am going to have stinking garbage piling up everywhere.
I agree that we as consumers are getting the bad end of the deal. It is my understanding that ECUA is going to take over in Jan. I sent an email to them (obtained from their website) and requested to find out when I should receive my monthly invoice from them in order to prepare my monthly, yearly budget. I never received a response. Once I sent a 2nd request I did receive an email back requesting that I contact them by phone. The rep that I spoke with could not answer my questions and had no clue as to when I would be billed. When I inquired about the “lifeline” rate she didn’t really know what I was talking about. She said that the discounted rates that they had were only for seniors citizens. It appears that even though their bank accounts were ready for our money their planning, preparation was not. Poor managenment skills! Nice to know that ECUA employees are getting pay raises in Jan (was told by ECUA employee). I just hope that it’s the blue collar employees that get our money instead of the ones who have made poor decisions.
I want a new garbage can, the one that I have is old and it STINKS REAL BAD. Does anybody know if you get new cans, since we are all going to have new service?
It does sound like you “Northenders” are getting unfair treatment by ECUA.
They should have put the word out better. They had plenty of advance information on the program and knew when it was going to be implemented.
I would like to think that it was the ECUA staff who dropped the ball instead of Larry Walker. In years past he has been one of the better board members.
Do any of you remember the ECUA “Cell Phone gate” ? He was the only board member who did not take a free cell phone and run up large cell bills at ratepayer expense.
I bet if you took the time to call or email him about this situation he would take care of it.
(850)723-6094
lwalker@ecua.org
Rod in Pcola
Don’t complain about an elected offical on here………..email him your complaint. You can bet that I will right now!
Tell him that you are not happy and that you vote!
Larry Walker….hmmmm, probably out looking for all those roads he’s promised to pave as well. He has suddenly disappeared, or being optimistic, getting work done for his constituents to ensure timely and proper waste disposal, vice the now one month wait for delivery of the “previously promised” containers. I agree with “North-end” person above whole-heartedly, didn’t vote for him in November, certainly will remember this as well.
To North-end person,
I agree with you that there will be a lot of people who won’t know what’s going on until it’s too late. However, you probably got a letter from ECUA announcing the new service, but because it was long and wordy, you didn’t notice in the middle of the page, in the middle of a paragraph, that you were supposed to call to order recycling. Thanks to this site hopefully more people will find out about what they are Not going to get.
How many people will not have pick-up, because they do not read this web site and know what to do? I read it when I have time and think it is a wonderful site – but I missed that we had to call and request the new service. How many more has missed this and will our garbage just pile up in the old containers????
I hope everyone remenbers this next re-election time!!!!!! Larry Walker told us earlier in the year he was out the close down Allied Waste in the north-end of the county…..I for one did no vote for him because of this and will not vote again for him and will tell everyone NOT to vote for this person. The north-end always get the shaft.
So Larry Walker preached to us in several articles on north escambia that our service would not change. still 2 90 gallon cans= 180 that we had before.
but if you don’t pick up one of those cans because u have not delivered the blasted thing, you are picking up HALF as much trash for almost the same money. That’s a ripoff. You think we are that stupid Larry Walker?
I really think that Larry Walker needs to step in and continue with 2 picks-ups per week until they can supply us with the recycling can. Otherwise the complaints will never end. Or at least let us put the recycling in a bag next to the can. (Was told they will not pick it up.) Please make some effort to appear that you understand the situation. This is a total lack of planning on ECUA’s part. Why didn’t you let us call to order cans EARLIER so that they’d actually BE AVAILABLE when the so-called “service” was to start?!?
They told us nobody would get theirs up here until everybody on the south end got theirs. They are dumping it on the north end again.
We were told 4 or 5 weeks too when we called ECUA. That stinks!
We were told February too. They told us that people in the south end would get their containers this week, but the north end was just out of luck. We are being ripped off. Thanks Larry Walker. I bet you have your recylcing can already.
We were told we would get our recycling can in 4 TO 5 WEEKS, not 2 weeks and we called as soon as we were told we could. More specifically, the end of January or the first week of February. Hopefully Natalie Bowers speaks the truth. My opinion is this whole transition for the North end has not been handled well at all. You could say it’s literally been DUMPED on us. Hopefully this whole debacle doesn’t result in more roadside dumping. I really hope not because that’s the last thing we need.