Township officials will be looking at a variety of options for solid waste collection in hopes of saving money when they go out to bid next month.
Business Administrator Robert Hary told the Township Council on August 9 that officials will go out to bid next month for trash collection. The township’s current trash collections contract will expire in January.
Hary said that for the past five years the township has a winter and summer collection schedule, which “consists of one collection per week from January through mid-May and then a summer schedule that is from mid-May through early September, and that involves two collections per week.”
In the bid specifications the township hopes to send out in September, officials hope to include a variety of options. One is to provide bidders with the opportunity to bid on contracts ranging anywhere from one to five years. They can bid on either a contract that specifies a winter and summer schedule or one that includes once-a-week pick-up year-round — both collected by diesel-fueled trucks.
Then, they will also have the opportunity to bid either a winter/summer or once-a-week year-round collections that will be done by “clean technology” trucks, “which we are told can help reduce the price of this contract,” Hary explained.
Hary also told the council that the last time the township went out for bid for garbage collection, “the prices we got for once-a-week versus the summer and winter rate was virtually the same anyway, so the township opted for the twice-a-week option during the summer.” Hary said he believed this was based on tonnage. “The amount of garbage you’re going to have is the same anyway, regardless of when we pick it up.”
Council President Diane Ciccone suggested that township officials look into providing residents with a specific trash can that would serve as the required receptacle. Residents will be permitted only to put out for collection each week what will fit in the receptacle. “That way, we have consistency and we know exactly what the costs will be based on tonnage,” she said. This may even help reduce costs, she said. She also emphasized that residents should be encouraged to recycle.
Ciccone said she would advocate approving a shorter contract this year in case the township wants to implement a program where it would have to purchase the receptacles for the following year and start a new program then.
Not all residents seemed to be on board with the idea. Resident Andy Bromberg said questioned what he would do in the summer if he had a party that generated more trash than can fit into the provided receptacle. He said that as it is now, he usually puts out about three trash cans a week. Resident David Siegel echoed the sentiment, saying residents would be restricted to the amount of garbage they could put out each time.
