Continuity of Operations in Face of Covid-19
Dear Community Partners:
As we continue to navigate the course of Covid-19 and its impact around the world, we want to be transparent about our business practices and the operational changes you may see from Millennium Waste. Our focus during this time is clear: minimize risk for our employees and customers while still providing the reliable solid waste collection services that our communities rely on.
We’re proud to be a decentralized business model that places ultimate decision makers at the local level, and yet we have the backing of a large organization that maintains a healthy balance sheet along with significant physical and human capital that can be deployed in response to emergency situations.
Locally we’re adapting our operations to limit physical contact within our workplace. These changes include setting up remote access for administrative personnel who are able to work from home, purchase of enhanced janitorial products and services, enabling personnel to clock in/out using their own mobile devices, in addition to employing a host of hygiene and social distancing best practices.
Now is also a good time to educate our customers to bag and tie their household trash, a commonly overlooked best practice. Household trash that is not properly bagged and tied is susceptible to spills and further increases the risk of exposure for our personnel to potentially infectious waste. We appreciate any assistance from our partnered communities in furthering this message to residents.
At the moment, we have not experienced an impact to our serviceability and our community partners should not see any negative impacts as a result. However, we are frequently monitoring the situation in order to remain prepared with plans for continuity of our operations in a number of scenarios. Our current phase (Phase II) along with any subsequent phases of approach is outlined below:
Phase I: Total operational coverage and no immediate threat.
Precautionary measures are taken to increase hygiene and social distancing. No impact on service capacity while all personnel continue reporting for regular duty
Phase II: Total operational coverage or with minimal impact as local cases of Covid-19 arise in our communities.
Ramp up precautions including remote work mandated for non-essential personnel, and stagger start times of operational personnel to increase social distancing.
Phase III: Partial impact to operational coverage as local cases begin to impact availability of operational-essential personnel in the form of prolonged school closures and/or some cases of our own personnel being quarantined.
We begin operational triage to prioritize coverage of services most essential to the health and safety of our community partners. Lower priority services are more susceptible to delays or temporary suspension. Prioritization (from low to high) of collections services are deemed as follows:
- Residential Bulk & Brush (Lowest Priority) § Commercial (Non-Residential) Recycle
- Industrial/Construction Waste
- Commercial (Non-Residential) Waste § Residential Waste (Highest Priority)
Phase IV: Limited operational coverage necessitates further suspension and prioritization of services as frequency of Covid-19 cases increase results prompts broadened quarantining.
All Residential collection services are reduced to “cart only” in order to reduce chance of contact of our personnel with solid waste via manual pickup. Additionally, Residential collection services are impacted accordingly:
- Residential Bulk & Brush – collection services are suspended
- Residential Waste – reduced to cart contents only. Contents outside of container will not be collected to reduce risk of exposure of operational personnel and maximize operational efficiencies.
Phase V: No operational coverage as frequency of Covid-19 cases prompts a lockdown or full quarantine for our communities.
All collection services are suspended until lockdown is lifted. When the lockdown is lifted, we will revert to Phase IV, then work our way upward to and through Phase I approach.
We appreciate your understanding as we take precautions to protect the health and well-being of our employees, our customers, and our communities. Please trust that we recognize our essential role in maintaining health and sanitation in our communities. Supporting our municipal partners remains one of our highest priorities, right after the safety of our people, and we hope that is evident in our phased approach to plans for continuity of our operations.
Sincerely,
Josh Hale
Millennium Waste Inc./Quad Cities Landfill
3606 78th Ave. W.
Rock Island, IL 61201
Office: (309) 787-2303
Mobile: (931) 307-3041
www.millenniumwasteinc.com
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