Wisconsin County Set to Issue RFP

Portage County, Wis., is expected to issue a Request for Proposal for a company to operate its Materials Recovery Facility. The contract for the existing operator, Super Services, ends this year.

The county-owned MRF has been in operation since 1993. The RFP is seeking interested vendors to operate the facility from between 3-5 years. The population of the county is 67,000. A combination of curbside collection and drop-off recycling takes place in the county. According to a spokesman for the Portage County Solid Waste Department, all the municipally collected material is delivered to the MRF. Businesses, which also are mandated to have some type of collection program, are not mandated to deliver collected material to the MRF. The MRF collects around 6,600 tons of recyclables a year, with around 75 percent of the material collected paper.

The county expects to issue the RFP by Sept. 28, with a closing of the bidding process Oct. 30. The new contract will begin January, 2000.

According to the Stevens Point Journal, the county pays its present vendor, Superior, $64.25 per ton to process the material, but receives all the revenue from the operation.

The MRF lost about $100,000 in the first six months of 2001, Edwards said. The operation has made money only once since it opened in 1993, and that was in 1995.