“The day we start with them is the day we start saving money,” council member Dr. Carl B. Ramsey said. “Bill Houser has worked hard on this, and he really does a good job for us.”
Council members voted unanimously to hire Waste Management Inc. at a special meeting Monday night called to consider hiring a waste management firm.
At last month’s regular council meeting, council members asked Clarendon County Administrator William F. Houser and county attorney Ferrell Cothran to work out a contract with the waste management firm and present the completed contract to council.
At Monday’s meeting, Houser told council members that hiring Waste Management would cost the county a maximum of $1.2 million per year for the first three years.
“The length of the contract will be 20 years with two five-year extensions at the option of county council,” Houser said. “It has a CPI (Consumer Price Index), which is allowable after the third year, with a maximum increase not to exceed 5 percent.”
When looking at what the county has paid over the past 12 months to haul its own trash to sites outside the county, Clarendon could save between $400,000 and $600,000 a year, Houser said.
A year ago, Clarendon County was hauling trash to Three Rivers Solid Waste Authority in Aiken. At council’s urging to save money, Houser began having the county haul certain types of trash to a site located in Horry County and other types of trash to a site off Screaming Eagle Road in Richland County, therefore cutting the county’s transportation costs by more than 50 percent.
“By hiring a firm, we could possibly save even more,” Houser said. “The amount of waste collected will dictate exactly how much the county will save.”
Waste Management will be responsible for manning each of the county’s 11 recycling centers, collecting trash from each center, transportating trash out of the county and disposing municipal solid waste or household trash.
Waste Management has similar arrangements with other counties in South Carolina, including Sumter, Florence, Richland, Lexington, Fairfield and Kershaw counties. – The Item (Sumter, S.C.)