INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — In about three weeks, waste haulers will have a chance to offer Indian River County residents a new, better deal for picking up household trash, recyclables and yard waste.
Currently, the County contracts with two different haulers, Waste Management in the north portion of the county and Republic Services, also called Treasure Coast Refuse, in the south. Proposals will be due on Feb. 20 and will be evaluated this coming spring.
Bidders will be asked to provide prices for various options, to give commissioners some flexibility as the county looks at a mandate coming down the pike from state officials that requires 75 percent of the solid waste produced to be recycled.
One of the options allows for residents to keep their two-bin recycling system and use their own trash cans, requiring haulers to manually dump the containers in the trucks.
Two other options would require converting to 95-gallon, wheeled plastic toters for garbage and 65-gallon toters for recyclables. That system allow for what is called “single-stream recycling” whereby residents could mix all their glass, aluminum, steel, plastic and paper recyclables together. Those options would allow haulers to use trucks with automated lifting arms, thereby saving manpower.
That option would require either manual separation of the recyclables on the back-end, or a multi-million dollar sorting machine. Also on Tuesday commissioners directed staff to come back with a feasibility study for setting up a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), called a “murf” in the solid waste trade, to handle the incoming recyclables.
The MRF would be paid for as a capital expense and charged via a fee through the property tax assessment. One number that was tossed around at Tuesday’s meeting was about $21 per equivalent residential unit, which would increase the current fee from $79 to roughly $100.
Another decision that will have to be made is whether to provide trash pickup twice per week or once per week. The idea is that if recycling is made more convenient and participation increases, once per week trash pickup would be adequate.
Utilities Director Vincent Burke said the new contract, which would take effect on Oct. 1 and run for seven years with the option to renew for another three years, could be awarded to one hauler, or more than one hauler.
Burke said Fellsmere City Manager Jason Nunemaker is interested in the city potentially being added into the scope of the proposal. “In addition to including Fellsmere, other municipalities can piggy-back later on,” Burke said.
The Town of Indian River Shores just opted for a three-year renewal on its hauling contract with Republic Services, but Burke said after the county works out its new deal, if the Shores wanted to sign on, it could do so.
Vero Beach owns its own garbage trucks, employs its own drivers and haulers to provide trash pickup as a city service.
Recycling pickup is provided universally inside most of the populated area of the county called the Urban Service Area, and it’s paid for through solid waste assessments tacked on each property. Residents in the Urban Service Area who do not pay the estimated $15 per month for trash pickup can still put recycling bins out and have recyclables picked up at no extra charge.
