Time to Buy Tire Chains? Republic Services Netted Almost 1 Billion Last Year

It seems like this happens just about every year. We get one of our few snowstorms and then we wonder if the garbage is going to be collected the next day (it's not). 

Most people who have heard of the motto “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow …” believe that is the official motto of the United States Postal Service, but that phrase actually comes from Volume 4, Book 8, paragraph 98 of The Histories by Herodotus (“1439”). He was talking about the mounted courier system set up by the Persian King Darius. 

Pictured is part of the engraved passage on part of the James A. Farley post office building in New York City. Image via Flickr by Kevan.

The day before your garbage pickup day you have a decision to make. If you don't put your cans out, they'll come yet if you do put them out, they won't. 

Republic Services (based in Phoenix, AZ) must let their employees know service is canceled the evening before yet they don't inform the public until the day of. After you've dragged your cans through snow and ice the day (or evening) before while the garbage worker decides what they're going to do with an extra day off. The added extra bonus is that you get to store your holiday trash for an extra week. For most people, this time of year generates more garbage than any other time. 

Unless Republic Services is afraid their garbage workers might break a nail, why not have them show up early and chain their trucks up? You know, like over the road truckers have to do before they go over a snowy mountain pass, mail trucks, and Metro buses that aren't phased by "Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat,..." 

Maybe our LFP City Council should insist that Republic Services buy tire chains as a condition of renewing their next contract? If nothing else, we should demand that we (paying citizens) are informed much earlier when there's going to be a service interruption because you know their workers are being told much earlier than their customers. 

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