Some Elmore County residents want to can their garbage company

ELMORE COUNTY, Ala. (WSFA) — Some folks in rural Elmore County want to can their waste management company, Meridian Waste.

“It’s just inconsistent level of services. you know, this miss cans reports are being submitted to their customer support people and they’re not being followed through on the ground,” explained Elmore County Commission Chairman Bart Mercer. “We are equally as upset with Meridian and the level of service. I have experienced it at my home at my own residential trash service with them.”

Shane Broadway tried to fill the gap with his company, B-Ways Trash Services. He says it spread like wildfire until he was told the county has an exclusive contract with Meridian.

“All counties have a contract with somebody but some counties have exclusive franchise rights, which we didn’t know anything about,” Broadway said. “We actually called and asked the questions to certain people, and I don’t think they really knew. They didn’t lie to us, they just didn’t know the full extent of the contract.”

Mercer says the county commission is set to meet with Meridian this week to figure out what needs to be done.

“We’re going to ask them for a detailed plan to correct these issues starting from the time when a citizen calls customer service down to the time of what are their action items to ensure that call and that complaint is tracked until it’s fully closed out,” he explained.

Meridian Waste tells us the problem likely originated with a new GPS system not identifying some rural addresses from May through July.

It seems the problem has been mostly fixed per the company’s data, as they cite a 99.8% fulfillment rate so far this month.

Still, Meridian says they are placing an additional supervisor at the Elmore County local facility to improve service.

Elmore County renewed Meridian’s exclusive contract in 2025.

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