FLINT TWP. — The Flint Township Board of Trustees Monday approved a contract extension with Emterra Environmental USA to potentially lock in rates for refuse collection and recycling for the next 10 years.
Dan Garman of Emterra offered the board the option of renewing its contract for any combination of time frames it chose adding up to 10 years with the rates offered at Monday’s meeting. The current contract expires Dec. 31, and the board voted to extend the contract for three years with the ability to renew for two more extensions that could carry through 2029if the board remains satisfied with the service.
Emterra provides household solid waste collection and disposal service, yard waste collection and processing, recycling collection and processing and bulk waste service.
Garman originally presented the board with three pricing options in a letter to Supervisor Karyn Miller in March. The first pricing option would have included a recycling surcharge. The second option offered set pricing for a five-year contract, and the third option was set pricing for a 10-year contract. Both of those options built the recycling surcharge into the monthly rate.
Monthly fees that are now locked in over the potential 10-year time frame are: 2020, $10.92 per household, $8.05 for mobile homes; 2021, $11.14 and $8.21; 2022, $11.35 and $8.37; 2023, $11.57 and $8.54; 2024, $11.80 and $8.71; 2025, $11.80 and $8.71; 2026, $12.03 and $8.88; 2027, $12.30 and $9.06; 2028, $12.52 and $9.24; and 2029, $12.77 and $9.42.
“The only way we are able to lock that in is because we know we have a new recycling center opening this year in mid- Michigan,” Garman said.
Flint Township currently does not pay a recycling surcharge, but Garman explained in the March letter that the market for recyclables has changed. He wrote that 10 years ago the market was receiving $17 per ton for recyclable materials, but Emterra is now paying $127 per ton, which makes the recycling surcharge necessary.
Garman told the board Monday that Emterra had just been awarded a fiveyear contract with the City of Flushing and that the other bidder was $2 higher per month. He also pointed out in his March letter that Emterra was awarded the contract for Forest Township in September 2018 with the lowest bid of $11.31 per household for weekly trash pickup, biweekly recycling and six compost days per year. Republic Services’ bid came in at $13.42 per household, and Waste Management submitted a bid of $14 per household. Waste Management also showed a 24 percent rate increase from year to year, according to Garman.
Treasurer Lisa Anderson and Trustee Carol Pfaff-Dahl voted to postpone making a decision in order to consider opening the contract to bids, but that motion was voted down 7-2.