An Arrow Refuse truck demonstrates its automated roll-cart system in 2012. Waste Connections Inc. has purchased the company and is petitioning the state regulator to take over service in Juneau. (File photo by Heather Bryant/KTOO).
Juneau residents will have a rare opportunity this week to sound off over trash service.
The company that runs curbside pick up has been acquired by Waste Connections, a Canada-based business with customers in 39 states and five provinces.
But the new company still needs approval from the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to take over trash collection in Juneau.
“This is an opportunity for consumers to bring any concerns they might have before the RCA commissioners,” said Grace Salazar, head of the commission’s consumer protection office in Anchorage.
The city manager’s office wrote a letter in March outlining its concerns about trash pickup and requesting the state commission consider ceding more local control over community trash service.
“I think this hearing is at a point in time where the company’s really going to be listening to the community,” said Michele Elfers, who runs the city’s recycling program. “They will be in the same room, look face to face at people and recognize that we’re a community with concerns and needs. I think that it’s an important time to make comment and it potentially could be more powerful.”
The public hearing will be held from 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, May 25, in the Assembly chambers.
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