Photo by Jon Anderson.
Sanitation workers for Republic Services pick up household garbage in the Scout Creek section of the Trace Crossings community in Hoover on June 11.
The city of Hoover has joined with at least four other cities to form a solid waste authority to potentially manage garbage, recycling and debris removal for the cities.
As of mid-June, Mountain Brook, Pelham, Trussville and Vestavia Hills had joined with Hoover to form the authority. Homewood and Clanton were in the process of joining the authority, and other cities were evaluating the possibility, Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice said.
The idea is to provide residents with better waste removal and to use collective bargaining power and greater economies of scale to contain and/or reduce the cost, Rice said.
The seven cities named so far have a combined 59,500 single-family households in need of waste removal, and city officials say they should be able to obtain better rates from waste haulers than they could acting alone. Hoover has 26,000 of those single-family households, Rice said.
State law allows cities to form a solid waste authority and negotiate contracts with potential service providers instead of having to go through the competitive bid process and be bound to accept the lowest responsible bid. Sometimes the lowest bidder is not the best choice, Rice said.
The Cahaba Solid Waste Disposal Authority now is seeking proposals from various providers and hopes to choose one or more by mid-July, Rice said. Individual cities are not bound to go with the provider chosen by the authority, but if they choose not to do so within 365 days of the end of their current waste disposal contract, they must end their participation with the authority, he said.
Hoover’s last waste disposal contract was with Santek Waste Services of Alabama. Republic Services took over Santek’s business in Hoover the second week of May, said Gary Stignani, the municipal services manager for Republic. The city’s current contract is with Republic Services, and that contract is set to expire Sept. 30.
If the new solid waste authority can award a contract by mid-July, that would give 2½ months for a service transition to be worked out if Republic is not selected as the authority’s provider, Rice said.
Board members for the authority already have been in discussions with several providers, including Republic, Amwaste and Arrow Disposal Services, but others could offer proposals, Rice said.
The authority is asking service providers to provide prices for a variety of services, including removal of household garbage, recyclables, bulky items such as furniture and appliances, and limbs, leaves and other yard waste. The authority also is seeking options for different types of collection schedules and collection methods, including curbside and back-door service.
Mountain Brook, for example, offers residents back-door service, and the goal is to have options that would allow each city to keep its current type of service if it so chooses, Rice said. Cities could pick and choose from the menu of services cafeteria-style. They could use the authority’s provider to pick up household garbage but not recyclables or vice versa, Rice said.
Vestavia Hills just entered a new waste removal contract with Amwaste that took effect in October, so it still has more than two years left on that contract. Vestavia is very happy with improved service from Amwaste but wants to be in the authority so it can have options when the current contract expires, Vestavia City Manager Jeff Downes said.
Amwaste picks up household garbage and recyclables in containers twice a week in Vestavia, all mixed together, instead of two garbage pickups and one recycling pickup with the city’s previous provider. Amwaste takes the first pickup to the landfill and the second one to RePower South in Montgomery, which pulls out recyclables. Vestavia residents do not have to separate recyclables and are encouraged to save their recyclables for the second pickup each week.
The city so far has more than doubled its average recycling amount from 213 tons per quarter to 566 tons per quarter and saved money by cutting down pickup days from three to two, Downes said.
Hoover pays close to $8 million a year for waste removal services and doesn’t charge residents a garbage fee, and officials are always looking for ways to contain or reduce costs, Rice said.
Plus, people are always talking about regional cooperation, and this is a tangible step toward that, he said.
