Port dumps Waste Management, hires new hauler

The Port Washington Common Council on Tuesday dumped Waste Management as its trash and recycling collector and instead hired Harter’s Fox Valley Disposal.

“This is going to make us very popular if it works out well,” Mayor Ted Neitzke predicted, reflecting the frustration city officials and residents have experienced since November, when Waste Management bought out Advanced Disposal and took over the city’s contract. “We’re all at our breaking point.”

“This might be the most important PR move you make,” Ald. Mike Gasper told City Administrator Tony Brown.

Brown noted that when Waste Management took over the contract, its representatives assured the city it would continue to operate as a best in class operation.

“They’ve fallen very short of that,” Brown said. “There have been kind of non-stop issues.”

Those include missing collection on single streets, neighborhoods, subdivisions and more, he said. 

Although the city met with the company to try and work things out, Brown said, when service continued to be poor, it was time for a change.

Waste Management will collect garbage and recycling in Port Washington until midnight on Friday, Sept. 17, at which point Harter’s will take over the contract.

The five-year contract with Harter’s will have the firm handling the city’s weekly garbage collection and biweekly recycling pickup for almost 4,000 households, Brown said.

There will be a few changes in the collection, he noted.

The Friday collection may move to Thursdays, Brown said, and there will be alley collection for some residents whose refuse is currently picked up off the street.

The city will also take over ownership of the roughly 7,600 waste and recycling carts used by residents, and they will be swapped out for new carts, although Brown said this won’t happen immediately.

When it does, he said, residents can opt to keep their existing carts but won’t be allowed to use them for pickup by Harter’s.

The exchange of carts will likely be done on a garbage and recycling collection day, Brown said, when a contractor will follow the garbage and recycling truck and pick up the carts.

Residents who miss that day will be able to drop their carts off at the city garage for a period of time, he added.

Harter’s, he said, will be responsible for disposing of the carts.

“We’re not dealing with the process of disposing of 7,000 carts,” Brown said.

To ensure the city doesn’t experience the same issues with Harter’s that it has with Waste Management, Brown said, the firm will be required to post a $50,000 performance bond.

If the firm has to suspend collection for any reason, including a truck breaking down or weather, it must notify the city within two hours so residents can be told.

And if there are complaints, the city can require the company to satisfy them in two business days.

The cost of the service will be similar to that with Waste Management, Brown said, although the ratio will change. The cost to pick up garbage will be less than it is now, giving the city a break in its operating budget, while the recycling cost, which is charged to residents with their property taxes, will go up.

“It’s not going to be to a point where we’re talking about a 60% increase,” Brown said.

Neitzke noted that the cost of garbage and recycling collection has been increasing significantly through the years.

“At what point do we as a city review and study this becoming an internal process?” he asked, recalling the days when city workers picked up garbage and operated an incinerator to dispose of it. “These contracts seem to be going up and up.”

Brown said that because of the Waste Management situation, there wasn’t time to do that now. But, he added, the city would likely take a look at it before it re-ups the Harter’s contract.

The issue with taking on that task, he said, isn’t necessarily the vehicles or workers but the cost of disposal.