DANVERS, Mass. — As the Republic Services trash strike continues through its third week, a local restaurant owner is growing frustrated dealing with the excess garbage.
On Friday, the dumpster outside of her business, the Daily Harvest, was filled to the brim with trash when it caught fire.
Responding firefighters were met with heavy flames that caused a “significant risk” to the nearby building, according to officials.
The blaze was quickly brought under control, minimizing damage to the business, and there were no reports of any injuries.
The Danvers Fire Department says the cause of the fire is classified as accidental/undetermined at this time.
Danvers is one of the towns affected by the sanitation worker strike, and the Daily Harvest’s owner, Brittany Raesly, says she’s fed up with the piles of trash outside her business.
“I have to be open, this is my livelihood, if I’m not open I can’t pay my staff, I can’t pay my bills,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”
Raesly claims the dumpster was emptied more than a week ago, and the trash build up could have kindled the flames.
“I’ve had to call them, scream at them and have a fight in order to get them because we had so much trash, we couldn’t fit it on top.” she said. “We had to pile it super high...it’s just not clean.”
In a statement regarding the dumpster fire, a Republic Services spokesperson said, “Dumpsters do not catch fire because they are full.”
Boston 25 News reached out to the Teamsters Local 25 union, who declined to comment.
Both Republic Services and the Teamsters union have been negotiating throughout the day on Friday.
We will bring you updates on the outcome of that meeting when they become available.
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