The Minneapolis City Council is expected to vote at its next meeting on who will be running the city’s nationally known curbside recycling. The next meeting is scheduled for April 2.
The decision is between three companies, national operations Recycle America Alliance and Browning-Ferris Industries and local non-profit operation Eureka Recycling.
The existing contract for processing and marketing the city’s recyclables, which was set to expire the last day of 2003, was extended to April 30, 2004. The citywide program, covering around 108,000 households, collects, on average 23,000 tons of recyclables a year.
The city began the process when it issued a Request for Proposal last October.
In determining the best candidate to run the program, consultants hired by the city looked at the following criteria:
The distance of the proposer’s MRF from the location of the city’s collection fleet; anticipated dumping or throughput time of the city’s vehicles at the processing facilities; materials accepted for processing; processing residual rates at reference facilities; strength of marketing agreements; the net financial return to the city; and completeness of the information submitted.
After receiving each of the company’s bids, the city’s Transportation and Public Works Subcommittee asked each company to resubmit its best proposal.
All three proposals included floor prices for the material. However, in recommending RAA, the consultants found the company’s combination of extensive recycling experience, facility operational readiness, accommodating facility layout, and fixed based pricing held the most promise.
In its recent meeting, March 29th, the Minneapolis City Council Ways and Means Committee declined to endorse any option.
Both the Public Works Department and the city's Finance Department recommend that the city negotiate with RAA. The finance analysis embraced a provision unique to RAA -- fixed pricing.
According to local press reports RAA offered the city something more: an opportunity to fix through the life of the contract a price for newspaper and aluminum. The downside for the city would be lost revenue if the price climbed above the fixed price. The reverse would also be true: The city would still collect the fixed price if the market price fell.
By Finance Department calculations based on recent performance, the city would reap $6.21 million over a five-year period from RAA with the two fixed-price options. The city would collect $5.46 million from BFI and $5.39 million from Eureka -- without the fixed price options.