More trash woes for Orange County as haulers leave garbage behind

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Homeowners in Orange County said they are frustrated with more trash troubles.

Some said the multimillion dollar service is falling short, leaving leaves, debris, and trash bags behind.

Resident Robert Smith does yard work for a living.

His job now includes hauling off the yard waste he collects.

“I pretty much take this stuff away for people so they don’t have to worry about it,” he said.

The county is picking up the yard waste using a different process.

“When they rip open the bags, they’re leaving debris and what not, so then I have to come back and blow it off and clean it back up,” Smith said.

A homeowner said bags left behind by haulers filled both his trash and recycle bin, leaving no room for anything else.

Crews with FCC Infrastructure cut open every bag with yard waste, empty it and take away the plastic bags, but if the bags are paper, they’ll leave them in the yard for the owner to recycle.

“We used to get two days of garbage pickup, now we’re down to one, and they’re pretty picky,” said Smith.

The haulers have multimillion dollar contracts and taxpayers are footing the bill for their service, but some residents are still paying for people like Smith to take their yard waste away.

“My customers are like, ‘Look, just take it out, we’ll throw you a couple extra bucks, just you deal with it,’” said Smith.

A representative for FCC said crews are not allowed to leave any trash behind, even if it’s recyclable.

The representative said the company will talk to haulers about what Channel 9 caught on camera.

Cox Media Group