Mount Airy, NC May Privatize Garbage Collections

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): Mount Airy officials are seeking bids from contractors as part of an effort that could lead to residential garbage collections in the city being privatized. A notice was posted soliciting requests for proposals (RFPs) to provide solid waste and recycling collection services for local homes. This is part of an overall attempt to reduce expenses to the municipality, Mayor Jon Cawley explained Wednesday in saying that he is still familiarizing himself with all the details involved with the sanitation solicitation.

“I do know the staff suggested it, and the commissioners agreed, that we need to look for cost-cutting opportunities across the city,” he said of what led to issuing the request for proposals. This process will examine whether having an outside provider to handle the residential garbage/recycling pickups at local homes would be “less expensive than us running our own trash department,” Cawley said.

“We are in the fact-finding phase and just doing due diligence to see what’s out there,” he advised regarding the possibility of reduced costs for private-led sanitation collections. “And I have no idea what the results will show.” While the request for proposal process now under way pertains to residential collections only, not industrial or commercial garbage pickups, Cawley mentioned that studying the privatization of those components could come later.

 Courtesy: www.wasteadvantagemag.com