Agenda - Council - 02/27/1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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CASE # 7 CITY.WIDE CURBSIDE RECYCLING PROGRAM OPTIONS By: Steve Jankowski, City Engineer Background: Recently passed SCORE legislation requires each municipality to make available a curb-side recycling program. Anoka County has interpreted the regulations of this legislation to require a minimum of once monthly curbside pick-up of four recyclable items. To meet the requirements of this mandated program, the City received bids from four area contractors, and awarded a contract for picking up the entire City to Ace Solid Waste Management at the unit price of $1.15 per pick-up per month. The anticipated annual cost for this service to cover approximately 3500 households is $48,300 at this point. In September 1990, the City Council decided to award the curbside collection contract to the low bid contractor for a period of six months, to end on March 31, 1991 with the necessary funds coming from the Landfill Tipping Fee Fund. At the present time, the City receives funds from the County to help offset the cost of this mandated program. The City will receive up to $15,719 as its allotment for the first half of 1991. Although anticipated, funding for the final six months of 1991 may not be available due to state budget cuts. This money is granted through a joint powers agreement between the City and the County. The money must be used for activities which facilitate landfill abatement. Reimbursement from the County is received after receipts indicating payment are submitted to the County. ! ! Observations: With the impending expiration of the six month contract period approaching, a decision needs to be made on the future administration of this mandated program. At the present time, discussion of a proposal by Metropolitan Council is underway in the legislature to require all households to maintain garbage collection service. Alternatives: Alternative A - Continue the existing program. The original contract bid was set for a period of two years and three months, so there would be no reason to rebid at this time. The program would deplete funds from the Landfill Tipping Fee Fund. However, the fund undesignated balance is in excess of $600,000 and could easily support this program. Recycling is a practice which should be encouraged and fostered, and associating a fee for the program may cause it to be viewed negatively. It would also seem that encouraging programs designed to offset the negative impacts of landfilling such as curbside recycling is a reasonable use of the Landfill Tipping Fee Fund. Alternative B - Require contract haulers to provide curbside recycling. Under this alternative, all contract haulers operating in the City would be required to provide curbside recycling as a part of their basic service. The greatest advantage of this alternative is that it virtually eliminates City government administrative involvement and costs with this program. Individuals without collection services would be eliminated from the recycling program. This alternative would not be as efficient as utilizing a single vendor collecting the entire City. For example, three or four collectors would each have to travel down the same street to collect for their individual customers. An ordinance change would also be required for the implementation of this program, which according to the County's opinion would require mandatory refuse collection within the City along with active enforcement.