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Today I was looking over the letter that came with our garbage bill, and saw that the City of Fairbanks was attempting to lower the cost of collecting garbage. They are doing three things. First, they are going to start working four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. They say this will save them time doing their mobilizing and demobilizing at the beginning and end of the day. Makes sense. Second, they will only drive through a neighborhood one time on the collection day. Good idea. I didn't even know they did multiple passes as it was.

But the third way was the one that caught my attention:

We are installing GPS systems on our City packer trucks and have redesigned routes to maximize efficiency and reduce trips to the landfill.

I always love to see technology put to good use.

Now, if we can only get them to implement something like this system we could save them even more labor costs. And we'd be able to put yard waste in the bins without bagging it first!

As part of our house gutting, we called Fairbanks' only refuse company, University Refuse (who recently bought out the local Waste Management franchise) and ordered an 8-yard dumpster. I went by the house on Friday to check it out, and discovered they had not delivered it. By then, of course, it was too late to call, and we were stuck without a dumpster.

I began calling around, mainly to see if anyone knew how to contact someone at University Refuse. Long story short, a friend of mine hooked me up with someone at our church who rents dumpsters. Big dumpsters. Forty yard dumpsters. We got one dropped off Saturday afternoon. On Sunday, we took what we had pulled out of the house so far, as well as some yard waste, and threw it in. And filled over half of it. I'm now thankful we didn't get the eight yard dumpster.

But it doesn't quite end there. I called University Refuse on Friday (and tried again on Saturday) and let them know they didn't deliver. I then called on Sunday and told them to cancel the order, and please do not deliver one now. Come Monday, then Tuesday, they never called back, never offered an apology, never said, "Please try again in the future, and we'll do better." I guess when you're the only game in town you get sloppy. Hmm...maybe I'll start a garbage business and do customer service right. Not right now...maybe in a few years.

Two days ago (2/13, Tuesday) Carl's Jr. opened here in Fairbanks, with yesterday being their first really busy day. Today on my way to work (half way across town from Carl's Jr.) I saw a bag from there along side the road. Sigh. I'm glad we have a state-wide cleanup day every spring.