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• Contract Extension Between DNSWMA and Recology Could Include Recycling Service Charge

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Most Recology Del Norte customers could see their rates increase by about 5 percent starting July 1 pending approval from the Del Norte Solid Waste Management Authority.

The new rate structure will also require customers to pay roughly $5 extra for a recycling bin that’s larger than their garbage bin, according to DNSWMA Director Tedd Ward.

“It used to be that if you signed up for the current service and you were a residential customer, you got a 30 gallon trash cart and you could get up to a 90 gallon recycling cart for no additional charge,” Ward told the DNSWMA Board of Directors on Tuesday. “Because recycling is costly and because some customers were using it for additional trash, we remove the incentive by charging for the extra volume.”

Tuesday’s discussion regarding a change in the collections franchise agreement between the DNSWMA and Recology come after nearly a year and a half of negotiations involving an authority-appointed ad-hoc committee. It also allowed the county’s new representatives, supervisors Darrin Short and Valerie Starkey, to weigh in on the potential rate changes.

The DNSWMA Board of Directors also agreed to hold a town hall meeting at 4 p.m. April 6 to allow Recology customers to share their concerns about the potential rate increases.

“It’ll give people an opportunity to learn what we just learned before we voted on it,” DNSWMA Chair Blake Inscore said.

Under the proposed new fee schedule, a residential customer with a 32 gallon trash and recycling bin will find their monthly rate increase from $29.71 to 31.06 in July 2021. A residential customer who has a 32 gallon trash bin and wants a 64 gallon recycling bin will have to pay an extra $5.20 a month, increasing their rate to $36.28.

A commercial customer who has a 32 gallon trash bin and a 32 gallon recycling bin will see their rates increase from $46.35 to $48.48 in July. A commercial customer with a 96 gallon trash bin and a 96 gallon recycling bin will see their rate increase from $162.24 to $169.70.

The collection rates will also increase from $8.78 to $9.16 for residents asking for an extra trash bag.

Recology Del Norte General Manager Jeremy Herber approached the DNSWMA in August 2019 with a request to extend his firm’s collections franchise agreement by 10 years. The current agreement, in place since 2011, sunsets in 2023.

Herber’s request comes after Recology Del Norte took on the task of finding a place for the community’s recycling after local processor Julindra shuttered its doors in 2016. This development shed light on the fact that Del Norte County had a level of contamination in its recycling stream that was higher than the industry standard.

As a result, Recology and the DNSWMA spent about three years trying to get the community to reduce the amount of garbage it puts in recycling bins. Recology Humboldt’s new processing facility on the Samoa Peninsula near Eureka agreed to take Del Norte’s recycling. The authority also approved a rate increase of 6.12 percent that took effect July 2019.

When the prospect of further rate changes were brought before the Waste Authority Board in 2019, its Oct. 15, 2019 staff report stated the need to restructure was dependent on current and future regulations and legislation from CalRecycle, the California Air Resources Board and the Water Quality Control Board.

The report also cited the increasing cost to process recyclables since those who purchase the material, particularly international buyers, have reduced the amount of contamination they’re willing to accept.

On Tuesday, Herber said that 2019 rate increase helped Recology Del Norte weather the changes it has gone through in the past four years.

“I think all the bases we are 100 percent aware of at this moment in time is going to be covered under this contract,” he said. “As for the adjustments, it constantly stinks that some of these fees keep rolling back down from our government. That’s really the implications hitting us, not just Recology itself, but anybody that does business in California.”

According to Herber, Recology Del Norte will send out a flyer in its billing cycle to inform customers of the rate changes once the DNSWMA Board approves them. He said he’d like authorization to happen soon so those notices can go out the quarter before July 1, which is “coming fairly soon.”

In other matters, the DNSWMA Board appointed Short and Starkey to an ad-hoc committee to discuss a potential rate adjustment for Hambro WSG based on changes to the Consumer Price Index and increases to the minimum wage.

However, Inscore said he’d like to have initial conversations over rate changes be between DNSWMA staff and Hambro representatives. Hambro WSG operates the Del Norte County Transfer Station as well as a buy-back center that takes bottles and cans.

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