Dive Brief:
- New York-based Community Waste Services has agreed to pay more restitution and fines as part of a settlement after being investigated by the attorney general's office.
- The company will return $8,800 to 93 customers who paid for pick-ups that were never performed and another $2,000 in penalties.
- Keith Young, the company's manager, can't operate another waste business without posting a $30,000 bond.
Dive Insight:
The attorney general's office began reviewing the upstate hauler after receiving 12 complaints this year. It turns out that the owner of the company died and her son, Young, took over. When one of their trucks broke down last year Community stopped collecting waste or communicating with customers.
"A business cannot simply close its doors without first settling service obligations to consumers who have already paid," Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a press release.
This isn't the first waste-related investigation for the attorney general. In 2013, his office reached a $2.4 million settlement with Stericycle for overcharging schools, hospitals, police departments and fire departments for waste services. Schneiderman's office also fined a man $245,000 for operating an illegal landfill in his backyard and required him to remediate the area in 2014.
