By PHYLLIS ZORN

Staff writer

Many residents who live north of 330th Rd. will need to figure out what to do with their trash despite the opening a new county transfer station they pay taxes to support.

Anita and Warren Unruh, 527 340th Rd., used to have their trash picked up by Waste Connections.

“We had them for years, and they cut us off several years ago,” Anita Unruh said.

Neighbors are trying to arrange a large dumpster for them to use. Trash placed in it would be picked up by a different waste service.

“We haven’t gotten an honest answer from Waste Connections,” Unruh said. “When I first called, I got them to commit to a commercial dumpster.”

The next day, she got a call saying that would not happen.

“It seems like with Waste Connections you can arrange something with one department and then next day you get a call back from someone else saying no, we can’t do that.’ ”

The neighbors even talked about pooling their trash and hauling it to Marion, but that’s a 40-mile drive.

“We’re paying taxes to be able to use trash services in the county,” Unruh said.

County commissioner Kent Becker made several calls to Waste Connections and could not get an answer about trash service in that area.

Becker said Salina Waste had been picking up trash in some neighborhoods formerly served by Waste Connections, but they stopped.

When Becker called Salina Waste to find out why the company had stopped coming, he was told Waste Connections bought Salina Waste. The Salina branch of the company was having as much trouble getting answers from Waste Connections as Becker was having.