Santek officials: We're working to address garbage, recycling complaints

Santek Waste Services officials told the Hoover City Council Monday night they are working hard to address complaints related to pickup of garbage and items for recycling.

Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato said the biggest problems being reported are the placement of cans after pickup, missed collections and problems related to recycling.

Brandon Kemp, the general manager for Santek’s operations in Alabama, acknowledged that some of its drivers had started taking items that were put out by residents for recycling to the landfill instead.

Records from Birmingham Recycling and Recovery showed that the number of Santek trucks bringing loads from Hoover to the recycling center in Birmingham fell from an average of 59 a month in 2017 to 38 a month in 2018 and 24 a month in the first half of 2019, dropping to only 10 trucks from Hoover in June of this year.

Kemp said that once Santek management became aware of this in July, internal action was taken with drivers and supervisors. Sam Dillender, Santek’s municipal director, said those drivers are no longer driving in Hoover.

Also, in August, a new policy was put into effect that prohibits any trucks coming from Hoover on Wednesdays (recycling pickup day in Hoover) to enter the landfill or the company’s transfer station, Kemp said. The prohibition extends into Thursday morning to prevent dumping of recycling items then, he said.

The number of Santek trucks from Hoover making it to the recycling center climbed from 10 in June to 24 in July, 57 in August, 47 in September and 53 in October, records from Birmingham Recycling and Recovery show.

Santek also in October installed cameras and GPS trackers on all of its trucks to help monitor exactly where the trucks go and what is taking place inside and outside of the truck, Kemp said.

“Every single vehicle in the city of Hoover has a camera in it,” he said.

Now, if a Hoover resident complains that their street was missed by the garbage or recycling truck, managers can check the GPS data and cameras to see if the truck went down that street and made stops, Kemp said. The cameras also allow managers to see if the drivers are driving safely, he said.

Having the cameras doesn’t mean there won’t be any mistakes, but they help managers see problem areas more clearly and enable them to better respond, Kemp said. If managers determine that certain areas are being missed multiple times, they can educate the driver about the correct route and discipline the driver if necessary, he said.

99.9% SUCCESS RATE

In the first 11 months of this year, Santek picked up 42,619 tons of trash and items for recycling from Hoover residents, Kemp said. With two days of garbage pickup each week and one day of recycling pickup, the company had 6.1 million successful deliveries of service in those 11 months, excluding leaf pickup, he said.

Over the same time period, the company documented 3,190 complaints, which amounts to about 70 per week, Kemp said. That’s a success rate of 99.9 percent on-time, accurate service, he said.

The biggest problem the company is seeing with recycling is people putting things in their recycling bins that the recycling center can’t accept, creating contaminated loads, he said.

Santek has to pay Birmingham Recycling and Recovery a higher fee to process contaminated loads. In April 2016, the fee was $50 per ton for the portion of a load deemed contaminated. That fee rose to $75 per ton in October 2017 and $115 per ton in October 2019.

On average, about 40 percent of the loads from Hoover are contaminated, Dillender said.

When people’s recycling bins are heavily contaminated, Santek workers may leave them unemptied on recycling day and dump them in with the garbage on the next garbage pickup.

Councilman Curt Posey said one of the biggest complaints he hears from residents is that Santek workers are dumping items from the recycling bin in with the trash, and the residents have no idea why that is being done.

PUBLIC EDUCATION

Kemp said Santek plans to once again begin leaving hangtags that explain why recycling bins were considered contaminated. The tags also will provide a phone number to call and website to visit for residents who have complaints, questions or concerns.

Councilman Mike Shaw said council members have heard that promise before, and Santek did not follow through with it.

“It becomes an issue of trust,” Shaw said. “When I get consistent calls from members of the community with the same problem over and over, that’s a huge problem of operational integrity. … Until we start seeing some results and not talk, I don’t see how we can have that level of trust.”

Posey asked if every resident could receive the hangtag, which also explains what items are acceptable for curbside recycling and what items are not. That might prevent some problems upfront, he said.

Dillender said that is something Santek can explore. Eighteen months ago, the company sent out 26,000 notices in the mail to Hoover residents and saw a minor drop in contamination, he said. The problem with mail notices are that many of them get thrown away without residents actually reading them, he said.

Kemp said Santek is very much interested in public education, both to increase awareness about recycling and reduce costs related to contaminated loads.

Kemp noted that the contamination rate is much lower in another nearby city where recycling is an option for residents and those residents pay an extra fee to recycle. People seem to be much more careful when they are paying directly for the service and see value in it, he said.

In Hoover, the cost of garbage and recycling pickup is handled by the city (with taxpayer dollars), and every single-family residence receives both a garbage bin and recycling bin. However, some Hoover residents treat their recycling bins like a second garbage bin.

OTHER RECYCLING CENTERS?

Kemp said Santek also wants to partner with the city to explore other options for recycling centers.

Birmingham Recycling and Recovery is the only recycling center in the Birmingham-Hoover metro area, while 10 years ago there were four, Dillender said.

That means Birmingham Recycling and Recovery has a monopoly on the market, and garbage haulers are at their mercy when it comes to rates and the types of materials that will be accepted for recycling, he said.

This coming Thursday, Santek officials plan to tour a facility that accepts all plastics, Kemp said.

Birmingham Recycling and Recovery accepts only plastics with a No. 1 or No. 2 in the recycling triangle on the items, and even some of those items, such as black plastics and clear plastic cups and lids from restaurants, end up being discarded and sent to the trash.

The market for recycled items internationally has changed dramatically in recent years.

Bluff Park resident Robin Schultz, who this past summer made city officials aware of Santek drivers not taking their loads to the recycling center, told the council Monday night that Birmingham Recycling and Recovery should not be vilified. The recycling center’s tipping fees are still half the average national rate, and the company had a $430,000 loss last year, Schultz said.

He’s all in favor of public education, but Santek also needs to be held accountable for its errors, he said. Hoover’s contract with Santek allows the city to fine the company $200 if it fails to resolve a complaint within 24 hours and $400 if the same resident has a repeat problem within the same month.

City Administrator Allan Rice said city officials can pursue fines against Santek, but they also need to consider the costs of processing those fines and whether it is worth it.

Also, if the city develops a reputation for issuing fines for garbage complaints at the drop of a hat, it could come back to the haunt the city the next time it seeks bids for garbage pickup, Rice said. Companies placing bids will simply build those fines into their bid amount, he said.

NEXT STEPS

The mayor said he understands that waste collection is a very difficult, dangerous and dirty job and that it can be difficult to fill those jobs. However, the city this past fiscal year paid Santek $7.6 million for waste collection and should get its money’s worth, he said.

Three thousand complaints is a significant number, and “we want to just make sure that we are responsive to what our citizens are concerned about,” Brocato said.

At some point in time, the council may want to consider rewriting its contract with Santek to address changes in the industry, he said.

Councilman John Greene, chairman of the Public Works Committee, said Santek has a good success rate statistically, but city officials would like to see it improve even more. He wants to talk further with the mayor and Rice about renegotiating the city’s contract with Santek and see what kind of progress Santek can make with the informational hang tags left on residents’ carts and perhaps mailers sent out to homes.

Kemp noted that Santek has invested $750,000 in new equipment to serve Hoover since it took over waste pickup in the city in 2015.

That includes adding an extra truck to handle pickup of residential garbage, two boom trucks with arms and claws to pick up yard waste, an additional leaf truck and a smaller vehicle to pick up waste from alleys, Kemp said.

As a resident of Hoover himself, he takes complaints against the company personally and is passionate about fixing problems, he said.

Both he and Greene encouraged residents to report any problems or concerns to the My Hoover Connect page on the city’s website. That enables Santek to better track problem areas and address them more quickly, they said.