A local trash hauling company has confirmed that they inadvertently overcharged two dozen Summit County residents for residential trash pickup last year.

Waste Management communications director Jennifer Wargo said Friday, Feb. 7, that an error occurred when mapping out the customers affected by the pay-as-you-throw program that is being rolled out in parts of Summit County.

“We sincerely apologize for an error that occurred when mapping the (Waste Management) customer base affected by Summit County’s Pay As You Throw plan,” Wargo said in an email. “Unfortunately some homes that border but are outside of the town limits were mistakenly included.”

Wargo said that 24 Waste Management customers were impacted by the mistake and the company will be crediting their accounts accordingly. She said if any impacted residents are no longer Waste Management customers, the company will issue a refund.

Pay-as-you-throw is a recycling incentive program that requires local waste hauling services to provide recycling for free to all customers while offering three different size bins that get more expensive as they increase in size. The goal of the program is to incentivize residents to recycle in order to be able to downsize their trash to receive a lower rate.

While the towns of Breckenridge and Frisco have rolled out versions of the pay-as-you-throw program, it has not yet rolled out in other parts of the county, including unincorporated parts of Summit County, such as Dillon Valley or Summit Cove. The Summit Board of County Commissioners last fall approved a pay-as-you-throw program that it aims to roll out in unincorporated parts of the county by this summer.

Though the pay-as-you-throw program has not yet rolled out in unincorporated parts of the county, Waste Management charged some residents of unincorporated Summit County as if they fell under the program. 

Tommy Jefferies, a resident of the Silver Shekel neighborhood in unincorporated Breckenridge, provided Summit Daily News a receipt showing a $789 refund that Waste Management provided him after the company overcharged him in 2024.

“It’s never fun to be overcharged by almost $800,” Jefferies said. “It was a real hassle to get the money back. I had to really fight tooth and nail with Waste Management.”

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Jefferies, who is a member of the Silver Shekel Owners Association board, said that others in his neighborhood were also overcharged. He encouraged residents of unincorporated Summit County to review their bills from Waste Management to ensure that the company did overcharge them.

Summit County communications director Adrienne Saia Isaac said in an email that the county has not received any complaints about other individuals in unincorporated Summit County being overcharged. The error appears to be on Waste Management’s end and outside of the county’s control, Isaac said.

“According to my colleagues, we have not received any complaints about this happening elsewhere in unincorporated Summit County,” Isaac said. “We hope that billing issues, either existing or future, between the haulers and (homeowners associations) can be resolved swiftly.”

Jennifer Schenk, the executive director of High Country Conservation Center, which has helped with the roll out of the pay-as-you-throw program, said that the nonprofit has also not received any reports that anyone outside the Silver Shekel neighborhood has been overcharged.

As someone who recycles regularly, Jefferies said that he believes the pay-as-you-throw program is a “good initiative” and that neither High Country Conservation Center nor the county are to blame for the error.

“I do think recycling is very important,” Jefferies said. “If it was the government’s fault in any way then all the other trash companies would have done the same thing.”