WESTFIELD – The Legislative & Ordinance Committee will give the full City Council a positive recommendation tonight to allow the city to enter into a five-year lease to acquire more than 13,000 new trash containers.
The L&O members and other councilors in attendance at the L&O session Wednesday night did raise several concerns about the operational reliability of the city’s fleet of recycling trucks, four of which are more than a decade old, and the city’s ability to collect recycled materials under the single-stream program.
The single-stream recycling program is doing away with the bins used to collect paper products in one bin and glass and metal items in a second bin. The bins will be replaced with residents’ current 96-gallon containers which, under the single-stream program, will be used to collect all recyclable materials.
The proposed lease-to-own contract is to acquire new, smaller 64-gallon containers for collection of residents’ solid waste trash at an annual cost of $116,899 over the life of the five-year contract.
The program is intended to reduce the volume of solid trash being collected by a third, a substantial cost avoidance, and to increase the volume of recyclable materials being sent to the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) located on Birnie Avenue in Springfield. The MRF recycles materials from 78 communities in the four western counties of the state.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik sent the resolution seeking authorization to enter a five-year, lease-to-own agreement with Municipal Capital Markets Group, Inc. to the City Council at its Aug. 21 session. The City Council is required to approve leases of more than three years as part of its financial oversight.
L&O Chairman and At-large Councilor Brian Sullivan said that council members generally support the proposed single-stream recycling program, but questioned the cost of replacing the current fleet of trucks needed to collect both the new 64-gallon trash barrels and the 96-gallon recycling containers.
“We can make the decision on single-stream (recycling), but we are taking a huge step back on the cost of (acquiring) new trucks,” Sullivan said. “What is the return on investment to get new trucks and how are we going to do it?”
Dave Billips, interim Department of Public Works director, said the two issues are separate and that even if the City Council does not approve the single-stream lease agreement, the city will still have to replace the aging fleet of trucks equipped with an articulated lift arm.
“The (present 2003 model) trucks have reached the end of their life cycle,” Billips said. “The bodies are rusting out. Even without the single-stream plan, we’d have to get new trucks anyway.”
“We are developing a capital plan,” Billips said. “We can rent a couple of trucks until we get to the point where we can lease-to-buy.”
“These are completely separate issues,” Billips said. “If you do or don’t go single-stream, we’ll still be back here in a couple of weeks for money to replace the trucks.”
Purchasing Department Director Tammy Tefft said the goal is to begin the single-stream recycling program by the end of the present calendar year and that any delay in approving the lease program will push the start to next spring which could jeopardize a $100,000 Department of Environmental Protection grant.
Tefft said there is also a significant educational component to the single-stream recycling rollout to alert residents to the new recycling system.
Tefft said that the city is considering other options, such as hiring a contractor to haul the recyclable materials to the MRF in Springfield to reduce the wear on tear on the city’s truck fleet.
Sullivan said he has “no problem going into the five-year lease, but what is the timeline for Dave (Billips) to come back to us with a plan to get the trucks? I have no doubt that the council will approve the single-stream recycling, but we’ll need the trucks.”
