Agenda - 11-21-2013 - 2 - Laserfiche WebLink

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31 2) Interest in bi- weekly curbside collection The County is willing to provide the frequency of service desired by the three Towns, as long as the three Towns can come to an agreement so that services can be uniform among all three. The County is willing to issue Request for Proposals for Urban Curbside service that allows requesting price quotes for both weekly and bi- weekly, or if the Towns already know that they prefer bi- weekly, then the County would simply request bi- weekly proposals and begin developing education and outreach materials and revising collection schedules accordingly. Since the County has not bid for this service it would be difficult to provide a firm fee quotation to the Towns without a formal RFP; especially if the fee is to be a firm five -year quotation. Based on staff's best available information and assessment, it is believed that bi- weekly curbside service could be provided in FY 2014/15 for an estimated fee of $50 /hh /year versus an estimated fee for weekly service of about $60 /hh /year. Again, without a firm collection service bid, County staff would be highly reluctant to guarantee this fee rate for a 5 -year period. We believe that the implementation timeline for either service could be the same, six months from notice to the County of the decision to proceed with the County partnership and a supporting written assurance /commitment. We also believe that for the first few months that conversion to bi- weekly will require more support and education than weekly, i.e. picking up missed collections, of which there will likely be more with bi- weekly. We have added more education and outreach funds and assumed more missed collection call pickups, adding about $1.00 to the annual fee. While it is clear that bi- weekly contract collection costs will be less expensive than weekly contract collection costs, County staff would still suggest that the Towns consider the advantages and disadvantages of conversion to bi- weekly service prior to deciding. County staff is not trying to influence the Towns toward either option and is fully capable of providing either service. The Towns should be aware of the subtle operational and implementation differences or implications regarding collection frequency. Issues that could be considered are: ➢ Recycling markets continue to accept more varieties of material at the curb. Future items could include bulky plastics and small scrap metal. Homes in the Urban Program already average over 300 lbs. annually and it could be possible that homes could average over 450 lbs. annually with carts. It is possible that added materials and increased volumes could result in overflowing carts and lack sufficient volume for potential future material additions ➢ Carts allow more volume for bulky items like cardboard that previously was not containerized. Some families may not have capacity for two weeks' worth of cardboard ➢ Implementing recycling carts at a bi- weekly frequency after twenty -four years of weekly would increase the degree and intensity of new information necessary as part of education and outreach efforts related to carts, would be inconsistent with current weekly recycling collection schedules and would also not correspond to existing weekly garbage collection cart services ➢ It is possible that should the original decision on frequency be determined unacceptable to the Towns after a period of time, a collection frequency change could be made in the future, given comprehensive education and outreach efforts, revision to the collection service contract and a comprehensive rerouting /change of collection schedules ➢ Most Urban Curbside route set -out rates are between 70 -80 %, meaning more than 70% place out their bins on any given day; therefore only 20 -30% do not set bins out every week and some simply don't recycle; will bi- weekly be sufficient for those high volume /frequency recyclers?