Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
<br /> <br />Orange County WCS KCI Proposal <br />1 <br />Project Protocol & Scope <br />Project Understanding <br />KCI understands that the County is currently seeking a consultant to conduct a comprehensive WCS on <br />municipal solid waste (MSW) collected within the County. We are aware that the County has been <br />developing a Solid Waste Master Plan: Road to Zero Waste and wishes to use the WCS results as a <br />baseline as it begins to implement the plan. Therefore, the objectives of the WCS are to 1) identify and <br />quantify potentially recoverable or divertible materials in the County’s MSW stream, 2) establish a <br />baseline composition against which future WCSs can be compared to measure changes in the County’s <br />waste stream over time, and 3) evaluate the effectiveness of current education, enforcement, and waste <br />diversion efforts. <br />KCI is extremely familiar with the solid waste operations in the County, having conducted the previous <br />WCS in 2016/2017 and the previous RCS in 2019. The County, with a population of 150,000 residents, is <br />part of the Research Triangle of North Carolina’s Piedmont region. The towns of Chapel Hill, Carrboro, <br />and Hillsborough are located within the County, as well as the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill <br />(UNC) and parts of the cities of Durham and Mebane. <br />MSW is collected in the County through a combination of County collection service, municipal haulers, <br />and various private haulers. Carrboro and Chapel Hill provide MSW collection themselves, while <br />Hillsborough contracts with Green For Life (GFL). In the unincorporated sections of the County, curbside <br />MSW collection is provided by private haulers, while the county owns and operates five Waste and <br />Recycling Centers and hauls the MSW from these facilities themselves. <br />Through a County contract with GFL, residential curbside single stream recyclables collection is provided <br />weekly in Hillsborough, Carrboro, and Chapel Hill (urban curbside recycling) and every other week in the <br />unincorporated areas of the County (rural curbside recycling). The County also provides some <br />commercial recyclables collection in the County, along with private haulers. Recyclables are also <br />collected at the five waste and recycling centers and four additional drop-off locations. UNC collects <br />single stream recyclables in outdoor carts and walkways. <br />KCI strongly recommends the WCS be conducted in a manner so that it can be compared to the previous <br />WCS conducted in 2016/2017. This will measure any changes in the MSW stream over the last 7 years, <br />either through ongoing education efforts by the County or through natural changes in the waste stream, <br />which may have been particularly impacted with the COVID pandemic in the interim years. Since KCI <br />conducted the previous WCS and given that the proposed Field Manager also served in that capacity for <br />the previous study, KCI is uniquely positioned to ensure the WCS protocol is consistent with the previous <br />study, allowing for straightforward comparison of the results. <br />Proposed Study Protocol <br />KCI considers our full detailed protocol to be proprietary information; therefore, a summary is provided <br />in this proposal. KCI has based this on the protocol KCI used for the County’s 2016/2017 WCS. KCI will <br />provide the full detailed protocol, material categories list, and health and safety plan during Task 2 of <br />the WCS (as noted in the proposed Scope of Work provided later in this section). At that time, we will <br />discuss and finalize with the County any recommended updates or edits to the protocol or material <br />1 SECTION Docusign Envelope ID: 1223AA0B-DDEC-4EBE-8FEA-427010558A5C