Farmington Hills

Residents will have three recycling container choices

By David Wallace
C & G Staff Writer

FARMINGTON HILLS — City Council unanimously passed an amendment to its solid waste service contract Feb. 13 that will give residents new containers for their recycling materials starting in July.

In the past year, the Resource Recovery and Recycling Authority of Southwest Oakland County’s material recovery facility operator, ReCommunity Recycling, invested $4.5 million to upgrade the Southfield facility to accommodate single-stream recycling. That means that residents don’t have to sort their recycling materials when they put them in their recycling receptacles, and the truck drivers don’t have to sort the materials when collecting them at the curb. All the sorting happens at the facility, and the simplified process supposedly encourages more recycling.

That single-stream upgrade allows the city’s waste hauler, Waste Management, to switch to automated curbside collection of recyclables. With the agreed-upon contract amendment, residents will receive new recycling containers on wheels.

There are three container sizes that the automated trucks will be able to pick up: 35, 64 and 96 gallons.

“They’re on wheels. They roll right out to the curb. There’s no sorting. There’s no carrying anything. There’s no bending over to pick it up. These really are the trend,” said Michael J. Csapo, the recycling authority’s general manager.

Residents hearing of the containers or seeing the ones displayed in Farmington when Farmington approved the contract amendment a few weeks ago contacted city leaders and voiced their concerns that the 64 and 96 gallon containers might be too big, though no residents appeared at the meeting. The 35-gallon option was a new addition at the Farmington Hills meeting.

“I’ve never seen one that small, to be honest with you. Every community I know uses the 96 or the 64,” said Csapo.

Gary Mekjian, Farmington Hills Public Services director, has experience with the big containers.

“From a personal perspective, in Northville Township, we have a 96 gallon, which is the biggest one. I love it,” said Mekjian, though he understands people might find it obtrusive.

City Manager Steve Brock said he has a small garage and he keeps the current 18-gallon recycling bin next to the door leading into the house.

“The small one, in my instance, two people living in the house, would probably be adequate and would be about the same size, footprint-wise, as the other one,” said Brock.

Recycling with the current bins started about 20 years ago.

“People didn’t like those at first, and they had to carry them, and they were this, and they were that, and people generally got accustomed to them, and it’s all worked out pretty well,” said Brock. “We hope that people will be patient with this. I’m expecting that Waste Management will be flexible about this, and that we’ll get the right solution for people to the degree that we can get it, as quickly as we can get it.”

Waste Management District Manager Sam Caramagno said they can be flexible and get people the size containers they want.

“If we have a standard container that we would deliver, maybe it’s the middle size 64 gallon, and then anybody that wants to upsize or downsize, we’ll have a process for contacting and then make those changes and adjust it accordingly,” said Caramagno.

No one opposed the idea of making the 64 gallon the standard size, which is the standard size in Ann Arbor, Csapo noted earlier in the meeting.

“We’re still working out the logistics, but it will probably be the same approach in Farmington, as well,” said Csapo.

“The upside of this whole thing is the more that we recycle, the cheaper it is to collect the material, because we get money back for the sale of the material that’s recycled,” said Mayor Barry Brickner.

“We’re anticipating a substantial increase in recycling volume, which means a substantial increase in recycling revenue for the city, and because it is a more efficient way to collect, you’re getting a rate decrease from your hauler,” said Csapo.

The contract amendment projects an overall cost savings of 3.6 percent over the existing contract, which Csapo said in Farmington Hills amounts to about $120,000.

The contract amendment extends the five-year agreement approved in 2008 through June 30, 2022, to amortize the cost of the bins and the trucks. The city did not rebid the contract, but recycling authority said that Waste Management was the low bidder among four other firms in 2008, and it beat the second-lowest bidder by more than 27 percent.

You can reach C & G Staff Writer David Wallace at dwallace@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1053.