Recycling Information

There has been a lot of discussions lately about garbage, recycling and bulk pick up. Some correct Information has been shared but, unfortunately, there has also been a lot of incorrect information spread to residents. First I want to provide a little bit of history of this process:

The old contract for garbage pickup and disposal was at a cost of $23.35/month and on October, 2021 a CPI increase of $0.28/month was added ($23.63 total). The garbage contract was due to expire in May, 2021 so the City needed to go out to bid for those services. The residential garbage rate at that time was $23.63/month and was for twice weekly green bin and once weekly blue bin pick up. On May 4, 2021 the City opened 3 proposals and 1 ''No Bid" from the following vendors: WastePro of Florida, Republic Services of Florida, Eastern Waste Systems, Inc. and the "No Bid'' was from Coastal Waste & Recycling, Inc. The RFP required each of the vendors to respond to the various garbage components individually (residential regular solid waste, residential recycling, household hazardous waste, commercial and bulk waste. Here is the pricing submitted: WastePro was $53.61, Republic Services was $49.62 and EWS was $10.75 (bulk only). Direction was given to city manager to negotiate a contract for lower pricing of solid waste and to also negotiate directly with the vendors for bulk pick up and disposal. The City Manager was able to do that.

The newly negotiated contract that started January 1, 2022 saw an increase of only $2.70/month. The new total monthly amount for garbage pickup was then $26.33 not anywhere near the originally proposed monthly Increase of $48-$50. There were changes to the recycling portion of this new contract. Unfortunately, there currently Is no market for recyclables. Actually there was a very low percentage of recycling being done correctly. One wet piece of cardboard or a dirty milk container or a pizza box could possibly contaminate the entire truck! We now commingle our solid waste. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, we will be able to stop comingling and return to separating recyclables. On August 4, 2021 "A motion was made to adopt Proposed Resolution 2021·R-32 approving and authorizing the execution of the original agreement and rst amendment to the inter-local agreement with Broward County for solid waste disposal and support services for the purpose of utilizing Waste-To-Energy services provided by Wheelabrator Environmental Systems, Inc." The motion was unanimously approved with a 5-0 vote. Whlle not perfect, this is much better than having garbage taken to a land ll in Central Florida to rot, decay and leech "nastiness" into the underground water system that ows to us here in South Florida and to possibly contaminate our water supply. bins it would create such an issue for residents with the "VOLUME" of garbage they produce. My agenda item on the February 2nd City Commission agenda provided for several things to happen: Residents who do not want or need a blue bin can request the city to take them away and store for future use; residents that need a blue bin to handle their "over ow" volume would register with the City and get a sticker for their blue bin so the driver will know to pick It up. I suggested that these blue garbage bins be scheduled for pick up at the same time as one of the regularly scheduled green bin pick ups. By using the same truck for this double pick up it means one less truck on your street. The item (#21) on the February 2nd agenda provided for a $2/month charge for the once weekly (4x/month) blue bin pick up service bringing monthly bills to $28.33 still lower than the proposed rates of $48-$50 and onl\! for those residents requesting this service. That item passed with a 4-1 vote. I have spoken with city manager and sta is working out all the details for residents to request their blue bin be removed or request a sticker and continue use of the blue bin.

It is also important to point out that the new contract provides for penalties/ nes (liquidated damages) for certain compliance Issues such as missed collections, failure to clean spillage and failure to repair damage done to public or private property. These nes range from $100 - $250 per day, per household or commercial property. It would not make sense to have approved the assessing of nes if there was no method to monitor or validate any failures.

For bulk and yard waste pick up there currently is sta going out the day prior to the scheduled pick-ups to ensure that the "piles" meet the requirements of size (maximum of 10 cubic yds) and are acceptable Items. Some de nitions: Bulk Waste/Trash shall mean large discarded items including, but not limited to discarded white goods, toilets, pool heaters, sheet metal, bedding, furniture, yard waste and other similar items. Bulk Yard Waste shall mean large accumulations of shrubbery, cuttings, palm fronds or tree limbs, vegetative matter resulting from landscaping maintenance and other items of a similar nature. Grass cuttings and leaves should be bagged and put in green cans.

There was also an item (#12) on the February 2nd commission agenda providing information on the disposal of Household Hazardous Waste. Administration recommended participation with the Southeast Florida Governmental Cooperative Purchasing Group RFP with Clean Harbors Environmental Services, Inc. That was approved and beginning April 2nd residents will be able to take their household waste for disposal at 13976 Pembroke Road.