City of Monroe discusses details of next residential trash pickup contract

The City of Monroe expects to face several challenges as its contract with Waste Management for refuse, recycling and yard waste collection nears its expiration date.

Monroe City Council discussed the matter during its work session Monday. The current contract with Waste Management is set to expire June 30, 2023, and City Manager Vince Pastue said that the company is only interested in a renewal if basic refuse collection for residents is converted from the current, unlimited pickup format to automated collection using one 96-gallon trash cart per household.

But Pastue also said that a new company would likely also require automated refuse collection, should the city opt to not continue its relationship with Waste Management and instead seek other bids.

"...The industry itself is so different," he said. "It's hard to find drivers, and that’s what is driving a lot of this circumstance, where they'd like to do it with these 96-gallon tote containers so that it just makes it easier for a mechanical arms to pick them up and dispose of the trash, then return them to the curb."

Patrick Lewis, the city’s director of engineering and public services, said that the city's administration is currently working with Waste Management on a draft proposal for a renewal that includes this change from unlimited pickup to automated with the totes. Lewis said that the company would likely provide the 96-gallon containers to each household as standard, but offer smaller sizes upon request for those who don't have as much trash and/or are unable to maneuver the larger ones.

Lewis acknowledged that trash trucks would struggle to retrieve and return the totes to the curb in city neighborhoods with heavy on-street parking.

"I'll use the extremes as an example," he said. "In the Frenchman's Bend neighborhood, where there's not a lot of on-street parking, we could go to this rural-type collection right now with very few issues, versus some of the streets say, like Cass or Harrison, the neighborhoods with a high density of rental units and on-street parking, it will be a little bit more challenging..."

The city would also need to decide how residents are supposed to dispose of larger items that won't fit in the 96-gallon totes. Lewis said one option could be to have several neighborhood cleanup days a year, where residents can dispose of these things.

"That’s some of the things that we’re getting into that we’ve got to overcome," he said.

Even if the city agreed to stay with Waste Management and go from unlimited pickup to the automated pickup with 96-gallon totes, Lewis said there will likely be a cost increase compared to the current contract.

"We'll likely be looking at an increase," he said. "We'll certainly not do better than we did with the contract right now, which has a CPI (Consumer Price Index) adjustment every year. The floor (for that) was zero, which was something the industry wanted because, in the previous term, it was negative a couple of the years. The ceiling was 3 percent a year... It will probably jump eight-to-ten percent this next contract year, since it was held a little bit artificially low certainly the year coming up, but also the year we just left."

While no formal decisions were made Monday, council generally seemed in favor of seeking other bids to at least compare against what Waste Management is working to bring to the table.

"I'd be strongly in favor of opening it up," said Councilman Brian Lamour. "Unless (Waste Management) came and just wiped us off our feet, which I don't see that happening."

Pastue said his intent in beginning the conversation Monday was to give whomever the city ultimately decides to go with enough time to prepare for the start of their contract.

"We've got a year to work with this," he said. "But as we discussed previously, if we're changing vendors, we easily want to give them at least six months lead time to mobilize, train, purchase what they need, and to get familiar with our community before they start...

"I think everyone understands what the challenges are and what the intent is. That really was my goal for this work session."

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Monroe officials discussing logistics of residential trash pickup