For our company, October of 2022 marks the first step in providing optimal service for our community. Integrating modern technology, restructuring our routes for efficiency, and promoting growth are big parts of the foundation that we will build upon to provide you with reliable service. With this newsletter we hope to provide you with some insight as to what goes on behind the scenes and to involve you in the upcoming changes.

As of October 10th , 2022, Lakeland Disposal & Recycling has welcomed 1,000 new customers from Waste Management into our community. Families living as far north as Manitowish Waters, as far south as Rhinelander and everywhere in between – we are happy to be of service. We are working diligently to make your transition as easy as possible.

As of October 1st , 2022, Lakeland Disposal has implemented an easier and more efficient routing system for our drivers. We have finally gone paperless in our trucks! Our hard-working drivers have been supplied with tablets that allow their workday to be documented accurately and with ease. This will increase the efficiency of our routes and allow us to service a wider range of customers. We are also adding a new truck to our fleet of residential vehicles that provides us with the necessary capacity to recycle for our new customers. This is all a part of what it takes to improve the quality of how we provide our services.

Given the varying locations of our new customers, keeping the old routes the same would cause some routes to be incredibly long and exhausting! Of course, to remedy these issues we had to make changes to our existing routes. Most of our pre-existing customer base will still have the same pickup day but there are exceptions. For customers transferring over from Waste Management, most of you will have a new day for pick up. We have sent out text messages, emails, and pre-recorded landline messages to all our new WM customers and our pre-existing LDR customers. The mail will be arriving a bit late due to inaccurate billing information and delivery delays. If your billing address differs from your service address, we ask that you provide us with your up-to-date billing address.

Our service area boarders have not been changed this month as we are centering our focus on keeping our new business organized and responding to our customer inquiries. Unfortunately, there are some families that live outside of our current service area. We ask for your patience while we integrate the 1,000 new customers into their new routes and introduce them to their new service provider. This change will take some time to smooth out. When we get settled, we will be reevaluating our service area boarders and considering expanding into areas that we have not serviced in the past. This link will provide you with local drop off sites and some other companies in the area that may be able to service your area, Disposal Options.

When we consider expanding our borders, we must consider where our nearest current customer is in comparison to the new area we want to service. How spread out are the residents in this area? How many customers would we have per square mile? How long is the stretch between where our last customer is and the new ones? What are the daily/ weekly/ monthly business costs for servicing this area? These are all matters to be looked at in detail before expanding our service area and to do that we will need to dedicate our time and attention to figuring that out. Until then, we will continue to improve the quality of the services we provide. By taking one step at a time, we can improve the way we function together- as a community.

Like many other businesses at this time, the prices have risen in some areas. This change is unavoidable. Most of our customers’ pricing has remained the same or even lowered in some circumstances. It is the areas that are not so densely populated who are affected the most. All things considered; it costs us more to provide the service therefore it costs more to purchase the service. This pricing will be evaluated in the future when there are more potential customers in a certain area.

For example, a key factor to consider when expanding our borders to sign up a new isolated neighborhood in the woodswould be how far down that county road do we need to drive to get there? There very well could be 5-10 residents there but does it take a round trip of 30- 45 minutes or more just to get out there? How significantly does that added time affect the length of the driver's current route? Does he still make it through his workday at 8-10 hours or would it then be 10-12 hours?