Buy your competition, raise prices, cut the quality of the service, and then... shut it down.

[mrsilv04]

At the beginning of this year, my trash hauler was bought out by mega-trash hauler Waste Management. And the predictable happened even quicker than I expected. Prices went up immediately (someone had to pay for the buy out, so they made the customers help out with that on day one). Then the quality of the service went down. Then, complaining about the quality of the service going down was useless, as the head count in the main office had been slashed.

Now comes word from the city, that they've been notified by Waste Management that they're kicking around the thought of shutting it down, even though they bought it less than a year ago. Nothing like being so big, that you can reduce your competition in this way, is there?

I got out as soon as I could, and established myself with yet another smaller locally owned hauling firm. We'll see how long this lasts.

 

[simple_gifts]

Another BITOG thread with a trash talker.

 

[JavierH19]

Same thing happened to me 2 years ago. Had a smaller company then wm took over and now the prices are higher and the service sucks and they'll sometimes not get our trash or come way later in the day.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Another BITOG thread with a trash talker.

Yep. Trash talking capitalist! That's the best kind...

 

[Jimmy_Russells]

 

[LazyDog]

My town used to out source the waste collection services to Waste management but after 2 years the town started to collect the garbage once again.

 

[blufeb95]

Thankfully in both places I live between the garbage service is handled by the municipality.

 

[Mazomopar]

Same thing I've experienced. Commonly referred to as Waste Mafia.

 

[Kruse]

About the same thing happened to my cousin. She worked the office for a refuse company and the city thought they were paying too much for trash removal. They helped with the refuse company buyout to another company and my cousin, along with everyone else in the office, got laid off. She was close enough to retirement to take unemployment and then will coast into retirement, but that's not the case with the other office workers. Getting to talk to the management or anybody else by the phone is next to impossible as nobody answers the phone and messages are not returned.
But, hey, the city made an effort to listen to the people calling about trash problems. Except now, there are more problems with no relief on the trash bill.

 

[simple_gifts]

Thankfully in both places I live between the garbage service is handled by the municipality.

I lived in downtown Middletown CT; it has a special tax district for businesses; trash pickup twice a week....

Town had a "chipper weekend" too; on a given weekend bring all your brush/wood to the side of your lot, call in advance and they'll drag a mobile chipper to your house and take care of it.

 

[eljefino]

Lesson here, start your own trash company, then sell out to Waste Management for a certain $ per client.

 

[nthach]

Waste Mismanagent. There was a scandal with a city in my area about a no-bid contract with them. And the recycling is done by another company, California Waste Solutions that also got into the news.

 

[kr_bitog]

If the Soprano series told the reality, most waste management is mafia business , so trash trash the trash resulting trashes

 

[Motu]

We have Waste Management in NZ too, but it's a New Zealand company...however, this is from their website -

[''After multiple acquisitions of smaller waste operations, Waste Management NZ Limited was formed in 1985. Years of accumulated knowledge and experience saw Waste Management quickly become New Zealand’s leading resource recovery, recycling and waste management provider.'']

 

[GMBoy]

We had a great small town trash service that suddenly shut down as in all in 1 day. They simply could not get people to work. They had no drivers one day and the owners finally said enough and shut down that day. I got an apology email and letter explaining why with suggestions of new trash services to use.

 

[2005jettatdi]

It sounds like what Intuit does with tax and accounting software.

We have city trash collection. Pickup twice a week for $ 20.37 per month. At my office, same deal for $ 17.16 per month. It is rough, but somehow we manage to scrape it together.

 

[nomas]

Trash collection has historically always been a corrupt industry .

 

[Warlord]

This is what Bass Pro has done. Now you can pretty much only get their junk. I used to enjoy the variety at the different chains.

 

[alarmguy]

Yeah all true in every industry, most prevalent in the tech industry right now.
If they don’t raise prices they run the companies they purchase into the ground in order to protect their own brand and price/profits

 

[nthach]

This is what Bass Pro has done. Now you can pretty much only get their junk. I used to enjoy the variety at the different chains.

They bought out Cabela’s a while ago - I went to one in Nevada and it looked shockingly the same as the Bass Pro in Manteca, CA.