At Monday night’s meeting, the Greensboro City Council will debate a crucial issue —awarding its recycling contract. The council normally meets on Tuesdays, but this week is the annual event where we stand around and sweat and eat Italian ice to let the criminals know we’re not going to take it anymore.
You can wade through the Rhino’s analysis of prices per ton and tipping fees to find out for yourself why John Hammer thinks it’s a trashy deal.
I think I can sum it up, however (let me know if I’ve missed something). Both proposals from ReCommunity and Waste Management offer up revenue sharing on the recyclables market, but according to John Hammer –city staff has recommended Recommunity’s “safe option” of a $30 per ton fixed rate with no revenue sharing. Waste Management, on the other hand, is offering $25 per ton and 60 percent revenue sharing.
No one denies revenue sharing in the recyclables market is risky, and that’s Hammer’s angle on the story, considering the fact the city was ready to pencil-whip ReCommunity’s original proposal back in March:
With While the city would no longer have to pay ReCommunity’s tipping fees, the $20 per ton in revenue Wyrick indicated the city would receive from ReCommunity was not a fixed rate, but a projected revenue share based on the average market value of recycled materials in 2011. Depending on the market, that value could be $20 or more, but could also be $10 a ton or as low as $0, leaving the city with no income.
So it appears as though ReCommunity has offered up two unfavorable deals on top of the current deal in which the city pays them to take recyclables. Yet the city “for some strange reason” wants to keep doing business with them.
