The trash has been piling up, and Bristol Borough residents and elected officials are getting fed up.
The borough’s trash contractor J.P. Mascaro & Sons has been failing to pick up waste on their assigned days and left residents with filled cans in many cases.
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While borough officials have said that the company’s crews have been trying to make up for delayed pick ups of waste, residents are starting to lose their cool.
“The residents are unhappy, and council has been unhappy,” Bristol Borough Council President Ralph DiGuiseppi said at a public meeting earlier this week.
“They know there’s a problem,” he added.
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Councilperson Greg Pezza, who owns Itri Wood Fired on Mill Street, said labor shortages are real, but everyone is getting frustrated by J.P. Mascaro & Sons.
Councilperson Lorraine Cullen said J.P. Mascaro & Sons is working to try to collect waste, but it’s “upsetting and frustrating” that trash has sat out for days without being collected.
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The company has bemoaned the national labor shortage for months while it has failed to live up to its commitments to taxpayers. The company faced numerous hauling problems last year as more people stayed home due to COVID-19 restrictions.
At the June council meeting, a representative for J.P. Mascaro & Sons said he expected the problems to last through summer.
“I can assure you that any service issues you may experience are not the result of our lack of effort or commitment, financial or otherwise,” company owner Pat Mascaro Sr. wrote in a letter to local municipalities a few months back.
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One of the problems the company has said was the “government’s COVID-related efforts,” which appeared to point to increased unemployment benefits from the federal government. Those benefits ended earlier this month.
A quick job search for the regional J.P. Mascaro & Sons division on Friday showed a drivers’ helper position pays $101 per day, or $12.65 per hour based on a typical eight-hour work day. The job listing noted that work completed outside of assigned daily duties brings in $10.10 per hour to paychecks. The company is paying $161 per day for drivers on routes, with a $16.16 per hour pay rate for work done outside of an assigned route. There are bonuses based on attendance.
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The trash hauler and Bristol Borough agreed to a contract extension last year that would pay the Montgomery County company upfront but lock in a rate of $115 per property for years 2021, 2022, and 2023. The idea behind the the deal was that it would lock in rates for the borough, instead of price increases, and provide an influx of cash for hiring efforts by J.P. Mascaro & Sons.
This week, DiGuiseppi swatted down numerous rumors that have floated around Bristol Borough recently about trash collection. He said borough crews continue to clean waterfront trash cans and there was no deal to just hand over a couple of million dollars to J.P. Mascaro & Sons, the borough’s years-long waste hauler, outside of the contract extension.
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J.P. Mascaro & Sons also has contracts with Lower Southampton, Northampton, Upper Southampton, and Warminster townships.
It appears patience is wearing thin in those towns due to problems with collection.
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The Bucks County Advance reported in August to Northampton Township was considering issuing fines and penalties against the company after they had received complaints of more than 700 missed collections.
On Friday, the Warminster Township Board of Supervisors authorized officials to use “all available resources to clean up what J.P. Mascaro can’t or won’t.” The township threatened to employ “fines, performance bond options, and a variety of litigation steps” against the company.
Larger waste hauler Waste Management, which serves Bristol Township, Falls Township, and Middletown Township, has also dealt with labor problems and some delays, but there problems have not appeared to impact collection as much as those being experienced by J.P. Mascaro & Sons.
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A J.P. Mascaro & Sons spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
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