City says switch to GFL collection mostly smooth as residents report missed pickups

The Murray City Council heard an update on the city’s transition to a new sanitation contractor and several residents raised service questions.

Ron Alberts, the city’s superintendent of sanitation (who also oversees cemetery operations), said the city switched collection contractors from Republic to GFL Environmental Services and that GFL “started doing collection on the very first day of April” and that, so far, “it’s went pretty well so far.” Alberts told the council GFL is deploying additional crews and using a mix of side-arm and rear-load trucks to cover routes, and that the company has established a dedicated call center in Mayfield to handle resident service calls and complaints.

Alberts said there are roughly 7,000 carts in the system and that GFL will not continue servicing certain legacy blue carts indefinitely; crews are still collecting some older carts while the city and contractor coordinate replacements. He advised residents to place carts at the curb by 7 a.m. on collection day and to record serial numbers on carts to help track ownership when carts go missing.

Several residents raised specific complaints during the meeting. One resident said their cart was not collected on the scheduled day; Alberts acknowledged crews were still picking up legacy carts and said he would look into missed pickups and that GFL’s truck cameras and tracking should help identify problems. Another resident asked about serial-number tracking; Alberts explained that serial numbers were logged at delivery to associate a cart with an address when carts are found out of place.

Council members directed no formal policy changes during the meeting; staff said they are meeting regularly with GFL managers and monitoring route performance.