City dumps Waste Connections: KC Dumpsters contracted as solid waste provider

After reviewing four bids for municipal solid waste collection and disposal services, the Graham City Council accepted a recommendation to contract with KC Dumpsters and drop Waste Connections.

The city accepted proposals for collection, hauling and disposal of all residential, commercial and industrial solid waster, including refuse and bulk waste. Proposals were received from Frontier Waste Solutions, On Site Solutions, KC Dumpsters and from its former provider, Waste Connections. 

After receiving a recommendation from the city Solid Waste Provider Evaluation and Selection Committee for KC Dumpsters, the council made the decision Thursday, Jan. 16 to accept their proposal.

“That committee scored the proposals received for four solid waste programs. The best value proposer was determined to be KC Dumpsters, with a score of 291 out of 300 possible points,” City Manager Eric Garretty said. “The selection committee recommends the initiation of contract negotiations with KC Dumpsters, and further recommends the CPI-U with the consolidated recycling option as the most advantageous option for the city.”

The committee was composed of council members Jeff Dickinson and Shana Wolfe along with the city manager. The group was tasked with evaluating the proposals and making a recommendation to the city council regarding the best option. 

“The selection committee weighted pricing at 50% of the total score, as the committee viewed as a top priority selecting the provider who can provide both high quality sustainable services and provide those services at a fair market price,” Garretty said. “KC Dumpsters’ proposals indicated both the ability to deliver high quality sustainable services and the ability to deliver those services at a fair market price.”

Wolfe said that a lot of the complaints of the large garbage trucks tearing up the roads in the city would be alleviated due to the fact that KC Dumpsters has smaller vehicles. Recycling will have to be delivered to the convenience station with the new option chosen by the city.

“I think that’s going to be a change for everyone. I think we as a group saw that as very important, but also with eyes looking forward (of) how much do we actually use that? Because there’s a cost involved for us to recycle,” Dickinson said. “If we want to go back after the first or second year and see what the value of that really is, we can renegotiate that with the vendor and remove that.”

That recycling change will move the collection period to once per week, according to the city manager.

“We were running a collection for regular trash and running a collection for recycling. So this contract, and the way it’s priced, it’ll just be the one collection a week,” he said. “You won’t have the second recycling truck running. So we are retaining recycling for those that like to do it, but it is a little bit more of an imposition on the customer that they will have to take it to the convenience station.”

The city manager said a significant number of customers were using the recycling container as a second garbage bin and causing issues when that was taken to the landfill.

“They would go to take a recycling load to the landfill, they would inspect it and say there's non-recyclable materials... (and) it's going to the regular landfill,” Garretty said. “We think with our staff out there at the convenience station, we can keep the stream clean so that when a recycling load from this contractor does go to the landfill, it actually goes to the recycling side or to a materials recycler.”

This contract would be an initial term of five years with renewal provisions and the city would not be obligated to renew the contract beyond the initial period. The city also has options in case the service is not provided as stated in the contract.

“Within the contract, we are requiring what’s called a performance bond. So in the event that things did go south with the selected provider, we could invoke the performance bond, we would find another solid waste handling company and the performance bond would cover any difference in price of us acquiring another company to continue the service,” Garretty said.

The option accepted by the council was for the Consumer Price Index and consolidated recycling for single-family residential unit services inside the city. The company proposed a $21.01 monthly rate for one roll-out container with a $15 charge per additional container.

For lake lots, outside the city and rural service, the monthly rate would be $42.07 for one roll-out container with a $20 charge per additional container.

The city’s current contract was set to expire Aug. 31, 2025. The city manager said in a previous meeting that if the council accepts a provider other than Waste Connections, the city would need at least three months to make the transition.

“We don’t want to put the citizens in a situation where there is an interruption in solid waste service. You simply can’t have it,” Garretty said in December. “I’m very conservative on things like this when it comes to city services. I think we should act sooner rather than later. I think we should act without delay.”