Priority Waste, plagued by delays in service in several Detroit-area communities including Taylor, has announced a “5-Point Recovery Plan” that started early in July. The plan was announced in a letter from new Chief Executive Officer Aaron Johnson to the customers across the region.

The five points detailed in the plan include expansion of the company’s fleet of trucks; staffing enhancements involving new hires and recruiting efforts; reinvestment in trash and recycling containers; customer service improvements through a partnership with a Michigan-based contact center; and a promise to improve recovery operations within a day of a missed pickup.

“… we are embracing a culture of continuous improvement,” Johnson wrote. “Every day, we are working to be better than we were the day before. Our objective is not simply to restore service, but to build a stronger, more reliable company than the one that existed before … and hold ourselves accountable for delivering measurable results.

“Most importantly, we are committed to earning back your trust, not through words alone, but through a sustained improvement and reliable performance …”

Johnson was elevated to CEO of the company in early June and Robert Simon was named the new senior vice president of fleet as part of the original changes that attempt to address the shortcomings. A $190 million influx of new capital was likely even more important.

Mayor Tim Woolley and other staff from the city met with officials from Priority Waste in late June. Woolley said that the meeting was “very productive”. The City of Taylor is in the middle of a 10-year contract with Priority Waste.

“We had a very frank discussion,” Woolley said. “They offered good ideas that should alleviate some of the problems that they are experiencing. While we understand that they are a subcontractor that is expected to provide specific services for us, we also understand that providing curbside service across a city as large as Taylor is also a partnership between the city and whomever we hire. Our team offered several ideas that all of us thought would make a difference.”

Priority Waste’s new recovery plan focuses on the following points:
- FLEET EXPANSION: Priority Waste has purchased almost 200 trucks previously operating under rental agreements, The company has also purchased 91 new automated side-load collection vehicles equipped with upgraded technology to improve efficiency and reliability. They have received 30 of those side-loader vehicles to date with the remaining to be delivered by the end of August. Frequent vehicle breakdowns have been a large problem for Priority Waste, and the new shipment should improve route reliability.
- STAFFING: In June, the company hired 41 new drivers, and Priority Waste continues to recruit more. The company will seek to maintain a 20 percent bench capacity of drivers, which would give them a more effective plan for dealing with absences, seasonal demands and unexpected demands without disrupting customer services.
- CONTAINER INVESTMENT: This was an issue heavily discussed at the meeting between the company and the City of Taylor. Limited investment in this area resulted in what Priority Waste called a significant backlog of container deliveries and repairs. As a result, during Johnson’s first week as CEO, the company spent more than $2 million to purchase 19,000 new containers, cutting into the backlog. In addition, it has expanded its container delivery crew from five to nine over the month of June. Johnson aimed at eliminating Priority Waste’s backlog of demands for containers by mid-July. Lack of replacement containers and parts has been a constant problem in Taylor.
- CUSTOMER SERVICE: Johnson admitted that Priority Waste’s customer service operations were not adequately staffed even before these recent breakdowns. As a result, the company is now using an outside customer support center, based in Michigan. Priority Waste saw a significant improvement in responsively and a decrease in call center volume of about 50 percent.
- RECOVERY OPERATIONS: While all these plans aim to eliminate shortcomings in service, Johnson admitted that issues and errors will still surface from time to time. When they do, missed collections will be recovered the very next day, according to a new company edict.

After making these announcements in early June, Johnson promised to follow up with another message to customers in August.

Johnson has a two-decade track record of driving operations improvements and enhancing service reliability, according to Priority Waste. He’s a fourth-generation waste industry operator who will oversee strengthening operations and upgrading the company’s infrastructure.

Most recently, he served as the president of the Midwest Region at Reworld, a waste management company. He oversaw regional operations, commercial growth and service delivery. Prior to that, he spent two decades with Waste Management in leadership roles across Canada and the Great Lakes. Over his career, he’s led or helped integrate more than 50 acquisitions.

Over the past 12 years, Taylor has used four waste companies for its curbside service program that includes waste, recycling and bulk pickups. Priority Waste replaced GFL Environmental. Before that, Rizzo Environmental Services took over in 2016 from Midwest Sanitation.