Pittsburg Drops Shorts and Picks Up CARDS 

By Lilli Weir and Matthew Parrot 

PITTSBURG, Kansas—Someone new is taking out the trash in Pittsburg, and according to some customers, what’s out at the curb stinks. 

CARDS Recycling and Waste Management, which services dozens of communities in at least five states in the region, took over the business of Shorts Trash Service last fall. Since then, former Shorts customers have complained online, to one another, and even to the city about trash that wasn’t picked up as scheduled and with other problems.  

One such customer is Ashton Friend, who lives on the east side of Pittsburg. She said her whole complex is struggling with the change in service. 

“There are two huge dumpsters at my apartment in the Crimson Villas, both always overflowing with garbage,” said. “I don’t think I have ever seen them empty since the new trash service has been here.”  

The story is similar for other Shorts customers, such as Abby Shoemaker, a Pittsburg resident on the south side of town. Shoemaker said new policies, including rules that specify where trash will be picked up, are causing them headaches. 

“I always had my trash in the alley behind my house with Shorts,” Shoemaker said. “Now it’s at the front of all of our houses in the ways of our cars, overflowing with trash from delays.”  

Compounding annoyances are billing practices that some CARDS customers, including Pittsburg State student Paxtyn Hays, say are downright unfair. Hays is one of many customers who spoke to reporters and posted online that they’ve been billed for pickups that never happened during January’s cold snaps. 

“I just don’t think it is fair that we are being charged normally during the times our trash sits out for weeks waiting to be picked up from delays,” Hays said.  

In addition to complaining online and directly to CARDS, some customers have been taking their concerns to city officials, who say they’re well aware of the problem. 

“We’ve gotten at least a dozen complaints about them in the past couple weeks,” said Pittsburg city manager Daron Hall. When asked, he added the city “very rarely, if ever, got complaints about Shorts.” 

CARDS employees acknowledged that customers have been billed for weeks when trash wasn’t picked up. Crystal Miller, a CARDS sales representative, said customers pay a flat rate for service each month and don’t receive refunds or reimbursements for missed weeks. 

“Even with delays, the same amount of trash should be picked up in a month,” Miller said.   

Miller also said that when regular pickups won’t happen, as was the case during January’s storms, customers are notified via the company’s “CARDS Holdings” Facebook page or directly via email. 

Outside of cases like these, Miller said customers should contact the company if they think their trash has been overlooked. 

“If we missed your trash or there is a delay longer than notified, please call us and let us know within 24 hours of a missed pick up and we will send a truck to come back by and pick it up,” Miller said. Complaints can be filed on CARDS’s website or by phone at (877) 592-2737.  

As to why trash cans now have to be on the street rather than in alleyways, Miller said that’s the case in all cities in which the company operates so that employees don’t have to leave their trash trucks because of safety concerns. 

“We have actually had workers hit in the past,” Miller said. “Trash cans out of the allies is the safest approach for our workers.” 

Despite the complaints since taking over from Shorts, Miller said the transition has been a successful one for CARDS. She said the number of customers in Pittsburg has stayed the same throughout the handoff. In fact, the company is growing.  

“Since being in Pittsburg, we have started expanding to Joplin just from word of our Pittsburg location,” Miller said.  

That doesn’t surprise customers like CARDS customer Hays, who had CARDS service when she used to live in Arkansas before moving to Pittsburg. But she’s not hopeful the problems will go away any time soon. 

“When they came to my town at first back in Arkansas, we had similar issues to what is going on here in Pittsburg now,” Hays said. “It has been years since they took over the service in my old town in Arkansas. And the issues there are still occurring today.”