HERMITAGE Trash hauler to forgo option
The garbage/recycling contractor for four municipalities wants to end its contract.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- City commissioners are warning residents not to stock up on Waste Management garbage bags.
The garbage hauler has notified the city that it doesn't intend to pick up a fourth-year option on the city garbage and recycling contract when the pact expires Jan. 31, 2003.
A contract with a new hauler must be in place by Feb. 1, or city residents will have no garbage or recycling service.
City Manager Gary Hinkson said when the city changed garbage carriers three years ago, a lot of people were stuck with unusable special garbage bags they had purchased.
City officials don't want that to happen again, he said.
Waste Management of Pennsylvania's decision affects more than just Hermitage, however.
Sharon, Farrell, Wheatland and Hermitage were all part of a four-municipal garbage/recycling contract put together by the Mercer County Regional Council of Governments to secure a better rate by dealing as a group rather than as individual municipalities.
Hinkson said his city commissioners, meeting in a work session Thursday, expressed interest in looking at a joint contract again if the other municipalities are interested.
The municipality representatives said, however, that if COG puts a new bid package together, they would like the job to be bid both jointly and separately to determine if there is any benefit to a joint contract.
Savings
James DeCapua, COG executive director, said the joint contract awarded Waste Management in 1999 saved the four municipalities a total of $93,333 a year, based on what they were paying before for garbage and recycling service.
Sharon, Farrell and Hermitage residents were offered the option of paying $8.23 a month for unlimited garbage pickup with a 90-gallon bin provided by the company or paying $1.11 for each individual garbage bag. Recycling was 61 cents per recycling bag or 61 cents per month with municipal-provided bins.
Wheatland's portion of the contract covered only the 90-gallon garbage bins at $7.43 per month and the recycling bags at 61 cents per month.
DeCapua said he will poll the four municipalities to determine if they want to pursue a joint contract again.