The board of directors of RethinkWaste has approved agreements with Browning-Ferris Industries of California (BFI) and Recology Grover Environmental Products for the processing and composting of an expected total of from 60,000 to 70,000 tons per year of plant materials and food scraps.
BFI and Recology Grover will be processing materials collected by Recology San Mateo County through modified residential and commercial collection programs set to start January 1, 2011.
BFI will process the materials at its Newby Island facility in San Jose, Calif., and Recology Grover will process them at its facility south of Tracy, Calif. The terms of the agreements are for four years, starting January 1, 2011, and include options for extending the contracts. The estimated total value (annual revenue) for these two contracts is $3.24 million in the first year.
The decision to have two processors was to ensure that capacity would be available to process the large quantities of material anticipated with the new services and to reduce the risk to RethinkWaste and its member agencies should an issue arise with one of the facilities during the contract term, according to the organization.
“We have negotiated two cost-competitive contracts to deliver these critical composting services for our customers,” says Kevin McCarthy, executive director of RethinkWaste. “Composting of materials is a key part of our long-term efforts to reduce waste going to the landfill and lowering associated greenhouse gas emissions.”
Newby Island is the processor for the materials currently collected through the franchised residential and commercial collection services provide by Allied Waste of San Mateo County. Newby Island’s existing agreement expires on December 31, 2010, which prompted RethinkWaste to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for organic materials processing services in April of 2008. A total of seven proposals were received in response to the RFP.
Formed in 1982, RethinkWaste is a joint powers authority comprised of 12 member agencies (Atherton, Belmont, Burlingame, East Palo Alto, Foster City, Hillsborough, Menlo Park, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo, the County of San Mateo and the West Bay Sanitary District) in San Mateo County. The agency’s legal name is the South Bayside Waste Management Authority (SBWMA.)
RethinkWaste owns and manages the Shoreway facility in San Carlos, which consists of a permitted solid waste transfer station and a recycling processing facility. More information on RethinkWaste can be found at www.RethinkWaste.org.