Oxford Village homeowners who are experiencing problems with the municipality’s new residential garbage hauler are encouraged to voice their complaints, but please be specific about it.

Bob Davis, village attorney, said people need to report exactly what the problems are, when the issues are occurring and where they live, so he can relay all that information to GFL Environmental USA, Inc., the company that took over the weekly curbside collection of household trash, recyclables and yard waste on Aug. 3.

“I really need to present some very good, specific issues,” he said.

If the trash hauler is, for example, skipping houses, not collecting everything it’s supposed to or leaving waste in the streets, the village wants to know about it.

Residents are encouraged to call the village office at (248) 628-2543. The office is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s closed on Friday.

At last week’s council meeting, Kevin Kadrich, who lives on Woodleigh Way in the Oxford Lakes subdivision, voiced his dissatisfaction with GFL Environmental USA during public comment.

“People in my subdivision are dragging half-full cans back to their garage for the next week,” he said. “There’s houses that are getting skipped altogether. It seems like an easy process. You start at this house and you pick up at every house as you go along the way. Doesn’t seem hard to me, but it seems to be hard for GFL.”

Rose Bejma, a former councilwoman who lives on Pearl St., is also not pleased with the new garbage hauler’s performance. “Our rubbish is not being picked up,” she said.

Bejma told council GFL employees “open the cans,” then “close the lid again after they see what’s inside of it.”

“It’s not getting done. It’s hit-and-miss at times,” she said.

Councilman Tom Kennis, who lives in the Oxford Lakes subdivision, agreed there are problems with GFL’s service. “I’m going through the same thing as everyone else in the neighborhood,” he said.

“We have to keep them in line,” Kennis noted.

But not everyone had complaints.

Councilwoman Maureen Helmuth, who lives on Dayton St., said, “We’ve had no problems.”

“I will relay the comments I’ve heard this evening back to them,” said Davis, who noted he has “a direct pipeline” to the GFL attorney and the company’s route manager.

MaryJo Vannatter, municipal sales executive for GFL, was expected to meet with Interim Village Manager Evan Teich on Sept. 20 to address the issues.

She said she “just heard” there were complaints on Monday, Sept. 18. “This is the absolute, God as my judge, first I (have) heard of any problems,” Vannatter said.

Vannatter plans to address the issues with a three-pronged approach. “I told (the village) to start creating a list of anybody who calls in (with a problem),” she said. “Secondly, I’m going to have the supervisor of that route check in at the end of the (pickup) day and if they get any calls (regarding problems), then they can go (back) out and get it done that day – don’t let it wait.”

Vannatter is also going to propose to her superiors at GFL that the company mail, at its expense, a newsletter to all village customers, explaining to them when trash and recyclables should be placed at the curb and exactly what is and is not acceptable.

“I think it will be (a) helpful communication to all the residents going forward,” she said.

This reporter also contacted Joseph A. Munem, director of Government Affairs and Public Relations for GFL Environmental USA, Inc., about the concerns expressed to council.

“We’ve had a handful, and I mean a handful, like less than five complaints about missed pickups in the village,” he said. “The last customer service issue that we had about this, we went and picked it up that day.”

“We had two (complaints) through the village and two through our system,” Munem noted.

Munem reminded village residents that all trash and recyclables should be placed at the curb by 7 a.m. on pickup day, which for Oxford is every Thursday. He said doing that could help “alleviate” some issues.

“I can tell you we don’t skip houses,” Munem said. “Nine times out of 10 when we get this issue anywhere, it’s usually a late set-out (of trash and/or recyclables). A lot of times the truck is gone and gotten everybody else and then, they put it out late . . . I’m not saying that’s what’s going on here, but our experience has been, that’s (generally) what it is.”

Garbage must be in either watertight containers or plastic trash bags tied and secured, according to GFL. Containers and bags must not weigh more than 50 pounds each.

Munem confirmed there was a complaint about a GFL employee looking in a trash can and leaving the contents. He said that’s because it contained yard waste “co-mingled with solid waste” such as household trash.

“That’s a no-no,” he explained. “They have to be separate. And that’s not even our rule. That’s the State of Michigan.”

“There’s a state law that compost has to be separate and we have to take it to a compost facility,” Vannatter said.

“We aren’t able to dispose of (yard waste and trash together) because the incinerators, the landfills, they can’t take it,” Munem said.

When yard waste and trash are found to be mixed, Munem said GFL employees are “supposed to . . . . put a sticker on the can to indicate (to the customer) what the issue was” and why it was left at the curb.

“The DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) . . . will fine you and it’s a big fine, too, so that’s why they have to leave it,” Vannatter explained.

Yard waste includes garden waste, leaves, lawn cuttings, shrubs and tree trimmings/pruning waste, according to GFL.

Vannatter noted that customers must also not mix trash in with their recyclable materials.

“When we go to a recycling facility, we can’t incorporate trash. They’ll reject the load,” she said.

Munem stressed that GFL wants to hear from its customers. “If there are any issues, people should feel free to contact us,” he said. Customers can either call GFL’s customer service number 1-844-464-3587 or submit their concerns online at www.gflusa.com.

“They can go online and fill out their own customer service request, so it just goes right into our system,” Munem said.

“We’re like any business, we’re not perfect. We make mistakes. And our goal is to make sure that if we miss something or get something wrong, we get right on it to make it right,” he added.

Oxford Village is one of five communities, totalling a little more than 33,000 households, that GFL recently took over from Republic Services. The others are Wolverine Lake, White Lake, Rochester Hills and Ray Township.

With so many new stops in these five communities, plus many more new customers in other communities, Vannatter said GFL employees are “working very hard to do their jobs,” but “people have to understand we’re human.”

“Kindness goes a lot further than being angry about it,” she said.