03/28/2012 Env Bd Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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• Dear Marty, Thank you for opening the door to work with the garbage and recycling service providers in Lino Lakes. Competition provides great opportunities for residents and businesses to benefit from the innovation and cost - effectiveness the marketplace can provide. We look forward to finding ways to make the system better. Today I am providing you with some background information that may not answer all the questions, but can hopefully provide a starting point for further discussion. Road wear and tear is a fact of life and we work with all the communities we serve to minimize impacts. ACE runs lighter loads during spring road restrictions and we will attempt to re -route trucks throughout the year to keep full trucks off your most vulnerable streets. In addition, we are driven to increase density in the communities we service thereby reducing the number of trucks on any street. Attached is the most recent education we did with our drivers at our monthly safety meeting. In 2011, we commissioned a professional engineer to help us better • understand the road cost differences in Cities. Specifically he looked at market driven garbage and recycling systems versus government run collection systems. Attached is a summary of the review. It seems to me the challenge is translating reductions in truck traffic to true cost savings, given the overriding influence of the freeze /thaw cycle and sub - surface soil conditions. Commercial recycling is happening in Lino Lakes. I have attached two reports to get the ball rolling. Recognize I have marked these reports confidential. I asked our folks to give me some data on the commercial accounts we haul in Lino Lakes and attached is what they produced. My goal is to give you some sense of what is going on in the community. Please do not distribute the confidential reports, but feel to summarize for discussion with the committee. We have not taken the time to audit the data so some of the coding may need further explanation. The biggest challenge with commercial recycling is space. A secondary issue is cost. We can provide economical solutions for businesses when they have enough volume to make it worth it for everybody. The idea of "cans for athletes" as proposed by a council- member is a good one and we are supportive of the effort. Recognize it will probably have an impact on our • residential program also and we would be concerned if the program "got too big."