Inside the town with so much trash it keeps losing contracts with garbage collection companies

A town in Virginia has now squandered two contracts with garbage collection companies because theres simply too much trash - sometimes several feet high - outside residents homes.

Updike Industries terminated its contract with Gordonsville six months before it was due to expire in June 2025, meaning the tiny town of less than 1,500 people will have to find a new trash collection service by January.

Updike accused the town of not honoring the terms of their deal, stating that its drivers routinely arrive at homes with three-foot high stacks of garbage. According to the company, this far exceeds the 64-gallon-per-week limit per household.

The company said theyve been collecting three times that amount every week, which had them filling up an extra truck, according to The Daily Progress.

We were showing up at houses and there were multiple full trash cans and piles of trash we’re expected to pick up, Updike operations manager Karl Thornhill told the local outlet. It was more than 64 gallons at multiple houses and was becoming unsafe for our drivers who must get out and collect the trash instead of using the automated arm to lift the cans.

Pictured: An Updike trash truck. Employees with the company said the amount of garbage Gordonsville residents had was frequently too burdensome for the automated arm to lift

Pictured: South Main Street in Gordonsville, a tiny town northeast of Charlottesville

This comes two years after another garbage collecting company refused to renew its contract with Gordonsville due to increasing operational expenses that are no longer supported by the current contract disposal rate.

Due to the sheer amount of trash at certain homes, Updike said it has had to leave some behind.

The company said it has reached out to town officials a dozen times over the past two years to strike a possible compromise but to no avail.

The office manager for the company, Audrey Updike, told The Daily Progress that the town hasnt communicated the 64-gallon limit to residents. 

Gordonsville Mayor Bobby Coiner, who has led the town since 2004, instead puts the blame at the feet of Updike.

Coiner felt the need to explain the situation when residents began complaining about their garbage not getting picked up. 

He put out a statement on social media saying that Updike was fine picking up more than 64 gallons of trash until their drivers began to complain.

Mayor Bobby Coiner is pictured in October 2018 with then-congressional candidate Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat

Updike was never picky about enforcing that [the 64-gallon limit] before, so it wasn’t a problem. After complaints they started going by the letter of the contract and holding households to the contract amount, he wrote. If Updike will do their very simple job of picking up the trash, there will be no problems going forward.

When accusations began to fly about Updike missing stops, it responded by saying excess trash beyond the limit not being collected didnt count as missed stops.

We have a one-half-of-1% margin of error in the town of Gordonsville, Thornhill said.

Before it gave up on the town entirely, Updike reportedly offered residents whose trash couldnt be lifted by the trucks arm a larger 95-gallon can for free.

Switching to the 95-gallon cans allowed our truck’s automated arms to safely grab the cans and load into the trucks, Audrey Updike said. 

We tried to solve the problem when the town would not communicate with us or residents about what we’re contracted to pick up. We went above and beyond and paid for cans out of pocket at no charge to the town or residents.

But according to the company the larger cans didnt solve the problem for long, as their drivers were still inundated with too much trash to pick up.

And last month, Updike began removing those new cans.

Shops and businesses are pictured on North Main Street of Gordonsville

Once residents caught wind of this, some of them reportedly began camouflaging their trash cans so Updike wouldnt take them away. Others went online to accuse the company of stealing their personal trash cans.

Updike said they reminded residents they dont own the 95-gallon cans and that they should contact the company if they believe their personal property was removed by accident.

Coiner once again blamed Updike for this fiasco, before warning residents that they should only trust town officials when it comes to trash pickup matters.

Some residents have hit back at the mayor, saying they dont trust the town if it doesnt tell them whats going on.

The most frustrating part is the lack of communication on the part of the town, lifelong Gordonsville resident Michelle Johnson told The Daily Progress.

DailyMail.com approached Coiner for comment. 

Updike employees said they dont have a grudge against the residents and are disappointed in how town officials havent worked with them to solve this issue.

Updike purchased and delivered the bigger cans last year, and it just wasn’t enough, Audrey Updike said. 

We continued to service everyone when the amounts of trash continued to increase, even though it was more than our contracted amount, and that wasn’t enough either. We want to provide great customer service, but the town has just not worked with us.