LACONIA — How city trash collection will work in the future could be decided in less than two weeks.
The City Council, on Monday, was shown cost comparisons for continuing the present system of manual collection, switching to an automated system, or having the city take the job of garbage collection itself.
Public Works Director Wes Anderson said the latest numbers show that moving to the automated system would cost the city $855,000 a year, while the cost to continue with the present manual method would be more than $1.1 million.
“We do need a decision one way or another at the next meeting [on Aug. 8] because this contract is coming down to the wire,” City Manager Scott Myers told the council.
The current contract runs out Sept. 30.
Anderson told the council in February that changing to an automated system would be more economical for the city than continuing with the present method of collecting trash with a two-man crew — a driver and a second man who rides on the rear of the truck and manually empties the trash cans into the truck’s hopper.
With the automated system, specially-designed large trash containers would be mechanically lifted and dumped into collection trucks.
In February the council directed Anderson to make a more concerted effort to obtain multiple bids from private contractors for both methods of collection, as well as to calculate what it would cost for the city to handle trash collection in-house.
On Monday Anderson told the council that in April the city reached out to five companies, but that Casella Waste Systems was the only one that submitted a bid.
“Unfortunately this is one of those industries where there’s not a lot of competition anymore, and I think that’s because of the tight labor market,” said Myers, who is recommending the change.
It would cost the city more to do its own garbage collection than to hire an outside contractor, Anderson said. If city vehicles and crews used the automated method, he calculated the cost would be $946,000 a year, with the cost for manual collection estimated at $1.28 million.
If the council decides to authorize the switch to automated collection, Anderson said there are plans to roll out a public information campaign to educate residents and businesses about how the new system will work. That campaign would include public meetings, ads and news articles in The Laconia Daily Sun, video presentations viewable on YouTube and Public Access Channel 24, and information in the city’s weekly enewsletter, Laconia Links.
The council will also need to approve how many of the specially-designed trash containers to purchase, and how they will be distributed. The plan at present calls for one, 64-gallon container to be allocated for each residence, with more for businesses and buildings with more than three dwelling units.
Myers said if the switch to automated collection is approved, the changeover would take place no sooner than April 1 next year.
(1) comment
I vote to keep it manual regardless of whether they go with Cassella or In-house.
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person.
Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.