Brooklyn Park Approves New Recycling Contract with Waste Management
After seeking out bids over the past nine months, Brooklyn Park approved a new five-year recycling contract, opting to stick with the city’s current hauler, Waste Management. The new contract will increase rates for households by more than $1 a month.
The Brooklyn Park City Council approved the new agreement by a 6-0 vote. Council member Boyd Morson was not in attendance.
The city sought new bids due to service issues with Waste Management, but received only one other bid that was much more expensive. Brooklyn Park is Waste Management’s largest municipal recycling contract.
According to Brooklyn Park Recycling Manager Tim Pratt, the city received four proposals when its recycling contract was up for renewal in 2017. This time around only Waste Managment and Eureka Recycling submitted bids.
Pratt spoke about the two companies that did not submit bids this year. He told council members those two businesses were not confident they could hire enough drivers and obtain the necessary number of trucks due to supply-chain issues by July 1, 2023, the date the new contract would begin.
“They said that nine months, while in the past would have been more than enough time, in these circumstances was not a sufficient amount of time,” Pratt said, mentioning to the council that 12 to 15 months notice for bids would have been more sufficient.
Waste Management: ‘Brooklyn Park is such a high priority’
Brooklyn Park residents currently pay $2.45 per month for recycling. Under the new agreement, it will cost residents $3.73 per month. The proposal by Eureka Recycling would have cost residents $6.73 per month, plus an additional charge to purchase carts.
While Eureka ranked higher in three other factors, cost made up 40 percent of the evaluation by city staff. The city also thought about purchasing its own carts to get more bids.
“The thought was if we were to purchase the carts that would kind of level that playing field and make it for a truly competitive bidding process,” said Pratt. “We did not see that leveling of the playing field.”
Waste Management agreed to an improvement plan with Brooklyn Park to help avoid recurring service issues in the city. It calls for Waste Management to increase the number of drivers servicing the city from five to seven. The company also agreed to prioritize Brooklyn Park when hiring and assigning drivers.
“Brooklyn Park is such a high priority, we are stepping away from contracts that we previously had,” said Rob Swanson, senior district manager with Waste Management, in speaking to the city council.
Swanson said the company is also taking unusual steps to hire more drivers. He said Waste Management started a new training program last year for people without a commercial driver’s license (CDL).
“There’s nothing we haven’t tried pre-pandemic,” said Swanson. “We’re down about 70,000 drivers nationwide with CDLs.”
He said the company has done everything from bonuses to several wage hikes above and beyond the Social Security’s 8.9 percent adjustment for inflation. Swanson said the new hiring program should soon help start to ease the driver shortage.
Swanson said the company is also hiring in advance of job openings, anticipating employee turnover, something it hasn’t done in the past.
