Talking trash

The contract to pick up County garbage comes up for renewal in a few days. The new deal is predicted to cost the County and its ratepayers a bit less than last year, partly because a fuel surcharge added in recent years has been negotiated away. A committee of council agreed last week to extend the agreement for one year. Public Works staff will use the year to work with its partners in Quinte Waste Solutions to put the collection of solid waste up for competitive bids.

Pretty sensible stuff. But let us, just for fun, take a closer look.

Public Works chief Robert McAuley prudently cautioned the committee about dreaming of big savings when competitive bids come in next year. He explained that in the decade since the garbage contract was last opened for tenders, the business of garbage in this region has become a virtual monopoly controlled by Waste Management.

This is a problem.

Waste Management (WM) is a big outfit. Based out of Texas, the company churns out about $3 billion in revenue each quarter and is on track to earn $1.2 billion before taxes this year. The capital markets peg its value at about $17 billion. They run 21,000 garbage trucks across the U.S. and Canada. They are big and they are powerful.

If WM is extending the County a bit of a cost break this year, you can bet it isn’t because of the municipality’s keen negotiating skills, competitive pressures or the kindness of their hearts. Rather more likely, it is a tactic to soften up their customers to ensure another long-term contract and solidify their hold on the garbage business in this region.

But rather than playing the false game of seeking competitive bids in a market where there is really only one bidder, perhaps we could use this year to look at our garbage in a different way.

We could start by asking ourselves some fund a m e n t a l questions about the volume of garbage we produce and the ways we could divert it better to recycling and compost. These are things we have tried, in fits and starts, over the past few years—but as we consider locking ourselves into another long-term deal with WM perhaps our own self-interest could prod us to do more.

But some other important questions need to be asked: Is it practical to pick up garbage at everyone’s doorstep? Along every road in the County? Is this really sustainable? Is it necessary? Or even desired?

I remember listening to a shopping centre owner explaining to a group of investors a few years ago that he was suspicious of claims the Internet was going to change the way we purchased groceries. He didn’t believe many folks would buy a pound of butter on the Internet. He was responding to concerns that the community grocery store might become obsolete in the age of online shopping.

He explained how the village market had evolved over centuries into the community grocery store as the primary method of food distribution. Food stores provide variety and sensory feedback (smell and touch) online shopping can’t. But the critical factor for him was efficiency of delivery. Food was delivered in large trucks; shoppers came from a short radius and took their groceries home. He understood in his bones that the increased cost of running two or three bags of groceries to individual homes would, in time, prove to be unsustainable and the model would fail.

A decade and a bit later, the Internet has become a big part of our life in many respects, but most us still don’t use it to buy our groceries. It doesn’t make sense. Neither does it make sense to insist that the municipality come to our door to pick up the garbage our groceries created.

We haven’t always had our garbage picked up at our door. It’s only been a few decades since we have indulged ourselves in the relative luxury of home pickup in rural communities.We managed.

Perhaps there is a middle ground. Last summer we spent a week in the southwest corner of France. It was a rural community, in many respects similar to our own. This community had no door-to-door collection of garbage. Instead, at many intersections, a collection of two or three very large plastic bins was tucked among the trees in front of the fence row—one bin for garbage, one divided bin for recycling and occasionally another for organic material.

So after supper someone was assigned to walk the garbage the kilometre to the end of the road. Alternatively, whenever someone was headed to the village nearby or elsewhere, they toted the garbage bag along—and dispatched it at the first set of bins they encountered.

I don’t know if that system of collection cost more or less than our method, but it sure seemed more efficient than sending large diesel-chugging trucks down every rue and chemin.

The point is that we ought not do things simply because it’s the way we’ve done it in the past—particularly when we are contributing to the engorgement of a powerful and unregulated monopoly. Once in a while we must stop and relook at the way we do business and ask ourselves if it still makes sense.

I hope we use this next year wisely—but I’m hedging my bet and adding a bit more Waste Management stock (WM: NYSE $37.54) to my savings.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca