For most of borough council, Waste Management made an offer too good to refuse.
Not only was the Texas-based trash hauler the low bidder among the the firms vying for Bridgeville’s next garbage collection contract, which begins in 2016, but Waste Management actually submitted a price lower than what the borough currently pays to… Waste Management.
After a 20-minute discussion last week, council voted 3-1 to keep Waste Management as Bridgeville’s trash collector.
The lone dissenter was Councilman William Colussy, who believes that Bridgeville should move its refuse collection in-house. It’s not the first time that Colussy has proposed using borough labor to try to reduce Bridgeville’s reliance on outside contractors.
Borough Manager Lori Collins and Mayor Pasquale DeBlasio came to the meeting having done their own calculations regarding the potential savings of moving trash collection in-house.
Collins, estimating that the borough would need at least 3 full-time workers dedicated to trash collection, came up with figures showing a net loss compared to the cost of outsourcing.
DeBlasio speculated that the borough might be able to manage trash collection with the man-hour equivalent of 2.5 workers. His figures showed a net savings.
However, neither the mayor nor the manager had included the cost of collecting and disposing household waste such as paint, televisions, and other materials that can’t be disposed of through normal trash collection. Under the new contract, borough residents pay about $13 per year to have those items taken away by Waste Management workers.
But the idea of localized trash collection may not be dead in the region. Councilman Nino Petrocelli Sr., who is Bridgeville’s liaison in the CharWest Council of Governments, noted that the COG has been exploring how its member communities could team up to create a low-cost, efficient trash collection service in coming years.
Photo by amateur photography by… / CC BY