Summary

Dunn on Friday sent a letter to Republic Services requesting the company to consider reimbursements for households who have endured long-lasting service disruptions.

Story

Due to winter weather and workforce stoppages, households across King County didn’t get their garbage picked up for weeks on end in December and January. Within King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn’s district, some households still haven’t had their trash collected since before Christmas Day. Dunn on Friday sent a letter to Republic Services requesting the company to consider reimbursements for households who have endured these long-lasting service disruptions.

“The majority of the complaints and pleas for help that I’ve heard — which sometimes reach up to 15 per day — have come from households in unincorporated areas outside of Maple Valley, Renton, Issaquah, and Kent,” Dunn said. “It’s simply unreasonable to expect people to go a month without having any trash collected whatsoever, and on top of that, to still ask them to cover the bill. Garbage collection is an essential public service, and the impacted households should not be expected to bear the full financial burden of this service lapse.”

Republic Services’ normal collection routes were derailed first by snow and ice, and then by a workforce stoppage due to a labor strike in San Diego. Though the strike ended days ago, many households within Dunn’s district have still not had their trash collected.

In addition to asking for reimbursements for customers, Dunn’s letter requests changes to the service expectations in King County by Republic Services in order to increase accommodations for ratepayers in the case of future service outages.

Read Dunn's full letter here.