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WS – Item 2 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item 2 Date: December 5, 2011 To: City Council From: Marty Asleson, Environmental Coordinator Re: Solid Waste – Organized Recycling discussion Background The City Council previously received a letter from a Lino Lakes resident requesting consideration of an organized citywide trash collection program. The council discussed this issue at the October 3, 2011 work session. While not supportive of a single hauler system the council requested that staff evaluate alternatives that could potentially minimize hauler traffic on residential streets. Analysis Section 504 of City Code establishes the regulation for solid waste collection. The City currently allows four (4) licensed residential haulers to operate within the city. Each hauler is required to provide curbside recycling pickup once every two weeks. For collection purposes the city is broken up into two districts. The east district pickup is Thursdays and the west district is on Fridays. The city does not require provision of yard waste services. Yard waste collection is provided solely as an added service of the hauler. Yard waste services are typically provided between April and October. As noted in the October 3, 2011 staff report, the primary reasons for considering organized collection is lower prices and reduced truck traffic. In absence of organized collection as an option, alternatives to reduce truck traffic become more limited. One option is to reduce the number of licenses available for solid waste collection. However, a reduction in licenses would likely be accommodated through attrition which could take a number of years. Reduction in licenses by a selection process becomes more difficult when not considering pricing and would need further review by the city attorney. Another alternative would be to move to an organized recycling system. Under this scenario, garbage hauler licenses would remain at 4 but the City would go through a competitive bidding process to select a single recycle hauler. This would eliminate three trucks every two weeks from the hauling routes because only one hauler would be providing this service.