Greening Austin Daily

City Council to Vote on Recycling Contract this Thursday

22nd June, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

After deciding to scrap all bids for construction of a city recycling plant, council will vote on Thursday to decide which of two proposals will replace its recycling contract with Greenstar, which will expire in September. Check out the Austin Business Journal for more details. You can also check out this Statesman article, which says:

City leaders want a local recycling plant that can handle large amounts of unsorted goods so the city can stop its current practice of paying Greenstar North America to truck recyclables to that firm’s San Antonio plant.

The Greenstar contract has been a money-loser for Austin, and it ends in September, though the city could extend it another year.

Mayor Lee Leffingwell and council members Martinez, Laura Morrison, Chris Riley and Randi Shade want city staffers to negotiate short-term and long-term recycling contracts with Balcones and Texas Disposal Systems. The full council will vote on that idea Thursday.

The contracts would come back to the council for a vote, so it could sign deals with one, both or neither, or extend the Greenstar deal.

City staffers would have to present the council with the short-term options by July 29 and long-term options in three months.

Council members Sheryl Cole and Bill Spelman voted against scrapping the bids and now want the city to negotiate only with Balcones for a long-term deal and extend the Greenstar contract in the interim.

Both said they want to choose Balcones to respect the work that went into the eight-month bidding process and because that firm has an excellent environmental record. Spelman added that he’s worried about setting a precedent of negotiating with a firm that recently broke lobbying rules.