5-year contract awarded; City eyes new method
OCEAN CITY — Pinelands Construction of Sea Isle City was awarded a five-year contract Aug. 25 to pick up Ocean City’s trash and recyclables at a cost of $1.95 million a year.
The cost for pickup has risen dramatically over the past few years and came to a critical point earlier this year when the city’s current provider, Gold Medal, threatened the city and other Cape May County communities that it would stop collection if they did not agree to renegotiate their contracts. Gold Medal is in the fifth year of a five-year contract and the city ended up agreeing to pay more to ensure it would not have a disruption through the busy summer season.
Gold Medal bid for the new contract as well but its cost was substantially higher than that of Pinelands, which was the low bidder.
Business Administrator George Savastano said the city took multiple bids in two different forms — one to continue with the regular trash and recyclables collection and the other to switch the city to uniform bins for every property. Although the annual cost was lower for the new option, the initial investment would have been much higher, he explained.
Pinelands’ contract is for $975,000 a year for the trash collection and $975,000 for recyclables with once-a-week collection for most of the year and twice weekly during the summer season.
The city also solicited bids to purchase two 96-gallon containers — one for trash, the other for recyclables — for each property.
Savastano said it is easier to collect using the containers because trucks are outfitted with devices that lift the containers to dump them. That would have cost $950,000 a year for trash and the same for recyclables, a savings of $50,000 annually or $250,000 over the life of the contract. However, it would have cost the city between $1.7 million and $2 million to buy the containers for each property.
He said the city should talk about changing over at some point because it is a cleaner operation, would increase recycling and with the attached lids would keep rain from increasing weight and adding to tipping fees.
Savastano said it is a good contract that increases the city’s costs about 30 percent over what it had been paying before the city amended its contract with Gold Medal for the latter part of 2022.
He noted that the contract requires a performance bond that must be renewed annually, something that would prevent the hauler from coming back and demanding an increase by threatening to withhold service.
“Those issues with Gold Medal won’t happen,” he said.
The contract was approved along with the rest of the consent agenda during Thursday evening’s Ocean City Council meeting.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff