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City releases numbers for residential waste tender

The City of Estevan has released numbers for the residential solid waste and recycling contract that it awarded to Green for Life Environmental last week. GFL’s bid was for $3.30 per month per bin for residential solid waste pickup and $3.

The City of Estevan has released numbers for the residential solid waste and recycling contract that it awarded to Green for Life Environmental last week.

GFL’s bid was for $3.30 per month per bin for residential solid waste pickup and $3.31 per month for curbside recycling, for a total of $6.61 per month, while Goliath bid $4.43 per month each for garbage and recycling, for a total of $8.86 per month.

There are 3,389 garbage carts and 3,476 recycling carts to be emptied. 

It works out to $134,204.40 for solid waste and $138.066.72 for recycling for GFL for the year, and $179.955.90 for solid waste pickup and $184,575.60 for recycling for Goliath.

The difference is $45,751.50 for waste and $46,508.88 for recycling.

Goliath was lower for additional service fees relating to the recycling depot and oil disposal.

The curbside variances were 34 per cent, but taking other factors into consideration, the overall variance is 14 per cent, said city manager Jeff Ward.

The new deal with GFL is three years plus a two-year option for the city. The current deal expires June 30.

Ward said people should not see any changes to service, since the company that was awarded the contract has already been providing those services to Estevan. GFL purchased Regens Disposal last year.

“Obviously GFL knew there was going to be competition from Goliath, so it’s nice to see them come in with a great bid that we can continue using them,” said Ward. “They have a shop in town and a lot of local employed people, so it’s great for the city.”

There haven’t been discussions to introduce a system in which people would pay for their garbage, which has been discussed in other communities. There has been talk of having garbage pickup switch to once every two weeks during the winter months as a cost-saving measure, but there aren’t any plans to switch, Ward said.

“Everyone’s used to curbside recycling now and that routine, so I don’t think now is the time to change any service levels,” said Ward.

There have been discussions about an organic service that people could opt-in for, but there would be a fee. It would include bagged refuse, sticks and more.

“We’re in talks about potentially doing a central bin, kind of like the recycling depot, to see how much use there is before we’d ever implement anything,” said Ward.

He has had people approach him to say that garbage bags with grass and other organic materials fill their bins each week.

Bins for organic waste have been added in other communities.

Ward noted that while the combined fee for solid waste and curbside recycling is $6.61 per month, or $13.22 per bi-monthly billing cycle, but that won’t be the amount on the bill. The city doesn’t charge for the solid waste it receives from GFL through the residential pickup, so the rate per month that people are charged is a little higher.

“There’s built-in costs to run the landfill that are in there because we receive the garbage without any billing to GFL,” said Ward.

As part of the contract, the current notification process will remain the same, and those who remained on backyard pickup from the last contract in 2013 will continue to have their waste and recycling picked up in the back alley.