{"id":798381,"date":"2019-08-08T16:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T22:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369692"},"modified":"2019-08-08T16:22:21","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T22:22:21","slug":"customers-say-timberline-disposal-waste-service-woes-continue-despite-assurances-for-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/customers-say-timberline-disposal-waste-service-woes-continue-despite-assurances-for-improvements\/","title":{"rendered":"Customers say Timberline Disposal waste service woes continue despite assurances for improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A Timberline Disposal truck picks up a trash can along its route. Despite assurances in June, Timberline has continued to disappoint customers with shoddy service.<\/strong>
Hugh Carey \/ hcarey@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

FRISCO \u2014 Timberline Disposal & Recycling, one of Summit County\u2019s only waste-hauling companies, continues to be hammered by customer complaints after promising smoother service<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Several disgruntled customers reached out to the Summit Daily over the past month claiming Timberline still had not cleaned up its act. The customers allege Timberline continues to miss pickups, take away customer trashcans without reason or notice, and have provided little in the way of helpful, responsive customer service.<\/p>\n

These are all complaints that Timberline representatives promised to rectify when contacted by the Summit Daily in June, including the staffing shortages and customer service availability.<\/p>\n

Susan Yates, of Silverthorne, said the situation is \u201cgetting out of control,\u201d claiming after a brief resumption of normal service, Timberline went back to its old ways earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have not changed their colors and have not picked up our garbage today,\u201d Yates wrote to the Summit Daily, adding that she was unable to reach anybody at Timberline after hours on a weekend to address the missed pickup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should lose their license to do business in this county and issue refunds to all customers who have paid for service not received,\u201d Yates wrote.<\/p>\n

Summit resident John Spencer wrote saying Timberline took away his trash can with no explanation or replacement, a similar complaint made by other customers in months previous.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey stole my bear proof can and won\u2019t replace it,\u201d Spencer wrote, adding that he called the police to report the taking. \u201cShameful. The cop even said he has had problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

Tracy Glass, a resident of the Highlands neighborhood in Breckenridge, said she had experienced \u201ccountless\u201d missed pickups and had not been able to get through to a customer service agent at Timberline. Glass said she had never experienced such poor communication with Talking Trash, one of the local waste hauling companies that merged with Timberline in February 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe office line is never answered, our messages are never replied to, and usually the elevator music is all we get when calling,\u201d Glass said. \u201cTalking Trash was local. We had a few issues, but they were always responsive, unlike Timberline. I\u2019m hoping that Waste Connections will improve our service but have low expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June, Timberline\u2019s district manager Rob Gill had made assurances that the company\u2019s staffing and customer service issues had been resolved. At a meeting last week with county officials, which included an executive from Timberline\u2019s parent company, Waste Connections, Gill once again offered assurances that staffing and customer service issues had been rectified.<\/p>\n

Tom Gosiorowski, Summit County\u2019s public works director, was present at the meeting. He said Timberline\u2019s representatives acknowledged the litany of service problems in the wake of the company\u2019s acquisition by the Vancouver, British Columbia-based waste management corporation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good conversation with (Waste Connections), and they were honest with us and forthcoming about the challenges they faces as they acquired Timberline and a whole group of waste haulers,\u201d Gosiorowski said. \u201cThey were honest about their struggles and what they\u2019ve done to correct them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to the continued complaints, Gill said the company had actually gotten compliments from customers on the service turnaround over the past month.<\/p>\n

Responding to missed pickups, Gill said there would \u201calways been a missed pickup here and there.\u201d But Gill also said the company let go of a few truck drivers due to safety concerns, which led to more missed pickups since June than anticipated. New drivers had been hired, he said, and the team was \u201cready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sitting in a lot better place than when (Waste Connections) took over the company,\u201d Gill said. He added that customer service was fully staffed and ready to handle customer concerns properly from here on out.<\/p>\n

If Timberline continues to rack up complaints from residents, Gosiorowski admitted the county has little in the way of regulatory power to hold Timberline accountable. However, the county does have the power to refuse renewal of a license the company needs to conduct trash disposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only recourse we have is through what we call designated disposal site licensing program,\u201d Gosiorowski said. \u201cThe county attorney has advised me that we have some language that says we can refuse to renew a license. When looking at renewal, we can take into account if some sort of public harm is being caused by their operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such public harm, Gosiorowski said, might include public health concerns and wildlife baiting in bear country.<\/p>\n

Though options in the county are limited, Gosiorowski said the waste management market could correct itself if customers vote with their dollars and switch hauling providers.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Timberline Disposal truck picks up a trash can along its route. Despite assurances in June, Timberline has continued to disappoint customers with shoddy service.Hugh Carey \/ hcarey@summitdaily.com FRISCO \u2014 Timberline Disposal & Recycling, one of Summit County\u2019s only waste-hauling companies, continues to be hammered by customer complaints after promising smoother service earlier this year. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798381","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 21:52:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}