BATON ROUGE - For the past 40 years, John Genola has been pulling the garbage to the curb by his Baton Rouge house.

Last month, it was a surprise to him when he opened his water bill to find itemized charges for garbage and recycling, among other charges. The City-Parish sent out additional information with the March water bills since the collection prices increased. Genola called 311 and found out that he's been paying for recycling for years and had no idea.

"I'm not a complainer but I just like to get what I'm paying for and if you're going to charge me for something give it to me," Genola said.

Prior to Republic Services entering the Baton Rouge market, Genola says he used to recycle. Now, he only has a garbage cart. When he called 311 he says he requested a recycling bin but was told that none were available and he'd have to wait.

"They didn't have one!"

Genola has been waiting for about three weeks for a recycling bin and he's not alone. When the new bills went out others had a similar thought. Calls have been coming into the 311 call center from people who didn't know they were paying for recycling and have requested bins. Right now, the parish has about 70 pending requests for new recycling carts and Republic Services is waiting for them to get here.

"I don't think that they should be charging people for a service that they're not providing."

While he doesn't have anything against recycling, Genola says if he's being charged he should get the service and he should have been offered a cart a long time ago.

"I think anyone that doesn't have a recycle bin is getting charged for it they should get a credit for what they've already been charged and then the charge stopped until they provide one," he said.

Genola has already been told that's not going to happen.

The City-Parish says they always have a couple dozen requests for new carts.