Complaints over garbage collection issues in a Birmingham area suburb are down dramatically since officials issued fines to their contractor for bad service.

Homewood in April and May fined Amwaste a total $65,500 for missed pickups. That amount was deducted from Homewood’s monthly garbage fee of $135,405.

“When we changed over and went with them, we knew there were going to be some headaches and hiccups for a little while,” said Berkley Squires, Homewood’s director of public services.

Homewood, a city of about 27,000 people just south of Birmingham, made the switch from the old-fashioned city trash collection to commercial provider Amwaste in summer 2023.

But by this spring with complaints continuing, Squires said the city had to take action and decided to exercise the clause that allowed the city to fine Amwaste for garbage not picked up within 24 hours of the scheduled collection date.

“We were missing the same houses and the same streets over and over,” Squires said. “It had gotten to a point where we need to something to say we expect better from what we’re getting and if we’re paying you a cost for each one of these houses that are not being picked up, I’m not going to continue to pay you if you’re not picking up on time and the day it’s supposed to be picked up.”

Other cities have also expressed frustration with Amwaste including delays and missed pickups.

Faced with continuing gripes from residents about trash collection Homewood leaders turned to a clause in their city’s contract with Amwaste that allowed them to penalize the contractor for missed pickups.

Homewood imposed a clause that mandates Amwaste provide “exceptional service.” The contract allows penalties of $250 for each complaint or request not satisfied within 24 hours.

“If there are more than two complaints at the same residence within the same month, the Authority may double the penalty for $500 at the Authority’s discretion notwithstanding the 24-hour time period,” the contract states.

Since Homewood imposed the penalties, Squires said complaints are significantly down, new managers service the area and technical issues are reduced.

For example, Squires said the city in July received just 17 inquiries about missed service.

“We get less and less calls daily and weekly now than we ever have with this thing,” Squires said. “They’ve worked diligently to correct those.”

Amwaste is a full-service waste and recycling company that operates in Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. The company was founded in 2010 with initial operations in the Birmingham market.

The company services customers in Trussville, Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, Homewood, Hoover, Lipscomb, Fultondale, and unincorporated Jefferson County.

Homewood Councilman Nick Sims said penalizing Amwaste was the “responsible thing to do.”

“We are using taxpayer money to pay for these services and the services were not of the quality that were promised,” he said. “Tying a financial piece to it for accountability is both necessary and appropriate.”

Residents turned to social media to express frustrations. Writers on the Facebook community called “Homewood City Voters” provided an outlet for residents to document their problems with service.

Sims, a longtime critic of Amwaste service, was even lauded on the Facebook group as a “trash advocate” for sharing advice about reporting issues and updating readers on service issues.

“Service has been improving,” he said. “It’s not 100 percent but it’s much better. It was long overdue, but I’m glad it finally happened.