New city contract could bring trash bill increase

Recycling changes also likely

Changes to Greencastle residents’ trash bills and recycling endeavors are likely on the horizon as the current city contract expires before the end of the year.

The city’s current trash contract with Republic Services, which has maintained a $10 monthly rate for 15 years, will expire in November.

City Attorney Laurie Hardwick is putting finishing touches on bid packages for a new trash and recycling contract that are expected to go out to interested firms shortly, Mayor Bill Dory told the City Council at its September meeting.

“We’ve had some interest from a variety of firms that have gotten wind of it,” the mayor said of the forthcoming trash contract bidding.

The word from several surrounding cities and vendors has been that Greencastle can almost certainly expect an increase in its trash-hauling fees with its next contract.

“We all need to brace ourselves on trash (bills),” Councilman Adam Cohen interjected.

Recycling is also expected to be impacted substantially in the new contract, thanks to changes in the market.

“We’re looking at a couple of different options for recycling, based on what we’re learning about the industry,” Mayor Dory explained.

“One is to continue the way we’re doing it now, which basically makes us (city officials) the recycling police, which is not a pleasant job.”

Certainly nobody wants to revisit the 2020 period when recyclables were refused and toters even confiscated by the hauler because of misguided items in the recycling toter.

The second option, the mayor said, is “to see if people can establish an individual contract (with the hauler) so long as there are a certain minimum number of customers in the city.”

“So if you’d want recycling, you contract directly with the trash hauler,” Dory added.

A third option would offer a “more limited recycling” program based on what the vendor says the market is ready to buy. Because right now there are not a lot of items being recycled, Dory said.

“There’s certain products that are recyclable but there’s no market for them,” the mayor said, “glass being the obvious one that they don’t want to handle any more because it costs them money to get rid of.”

The three options, Dory pointed out, are based on conversations with other cities and towns.

“There’s a lot of communities that just completely dropped recycling because of the cost.”

Mayor Dory pointed to Crawfordsville, our 16,000-person neighbor to the north, as an example.

“I relay this story because Crawfordsville used to be to part of our solid waste district before Montgomery County pulled out to do its own thing,” Dory said.

“Ten years ago, it (recycling) was a money maker for them (Crawfordsville). They still have their own trash crew where they uses city employees to pick up trash.”

However, a few years later that recycling market shifted and it was no longer a lucrative proposition.

“It went to neutral,” Dory continued, “where the recycler up there would accept the recycled goods but wouldn’t pay them anything for it.

“Now, the town has to pay to deposit recycle goods at the recycling agency,” he added. “So it’s done a ‘180’ (degree turn) over the last number of years.”

While there still appears to be a desire for Greencastle residents to recycle plastic and cardboard and other items, there does not appear to be a market for it.

The city was fortunate that it locked into its current rate with Republic Services before the recycling market changed.

“So as much as many of us want to recycle, the markets are not working in our favor,” Mayor Dory said. “So we’ll see what happens.”

It is expected that the trash contract will be on the Board of Works agenda next month.