Marquita Thomas lives in the 3800 block of Kentucky Derby Drive in Florissant. She called 5 On Your Side and claimed for the past month she's been having issues with her curbside trash service.
"I'm frustrated from my trash not being picked up. I have to call each week for my trash to be picked up," Thomas said.
Thomas uses Meridian Waste for her trash service. She said her trash is supposed to be collected each Thursday, but the hauler has skipped some weeks over the past month.
Thomas said some of her neighbors who live in the Gainesway Village subdivision are having the same problems. A man who lives next door to Thomas told 5 On Your Side he's been having similar issues.
It looks like the frustration Thomas is feeling may soon be over. Her calls to Meridian Waste seem to be working. A trash truck was spotted in her neighborhood about 90 minutes after she called the company to complain. Thomas also got a call Thursday afternoon from the company's area president. He told Thomas he is looking into her complaints and gave her his cell phone in case she has more issues going forward.
The company sent this statement to 5 On Your Side:
"She is a customer of Meridian Waste, and she did call in to the Meridian Waste's office today around 2:30pm and spoke with our customer care representative Cindy. She asked that our Area President call her back and provided a phone number. He has spoken with her and she has already confirmed that she has been collected for the day.
Thursday is her collection day and the Meridian Waste trucks are still running on schedule and have not retired for the evening. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee a specific collection time throughout the day.
Please know that Meridian Waste services over 120,000 residential customers in the greater St. Louis marketplace with multiple services (garbage, recycling, yard waste and bulk collection). This equates to over 240,000 services per week and 1,0239,200 service per month (just assuming 2 services: garbage & recycling let alone yard waste and bulk). That is a large number of services and a miss may happen due to any number of reasons: a driver out sick and the replacement driver doesn’t know the route well, a car may be blocking the view of the container and it’s assumed by the driver it’s not out, or just a plain mistake every now and then.
I am pleased that this resident has been serviced on her regularly scheduled collection day, and it is always our goal to provide quality service. However, if a miss is made, we will correct it."