A trash truck makes pickups in Ocean City.
Ocean City is making major changes to its trash and recycling contracts to benefit the public, but it will cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars more to pay its solid waste hauler.
Starting Nov. 1, property owners will be allowed to use larger trash containers than the ones permitted now. Currently, the maximum size is 32 gallons, but 64-gallon containers will now be permitted.
The change is expected to speed up collections because the trash hauler will be picking up fewer containers throughout town. The idea is that many property owners will now use just one 64-gallon container instead of two or more 32-gallon containers.
The larger containers were not part of the city’s original trash and recycling contracts with its solid waste hauler, Pineland Construction, when the company was hired in 2022. The switch to much larger containers presents challenges for Pineland and is one reason the contracts are increasing by a total of $660,000.
Although the overall size of the containers will increase, the city will continue to cap the amount of trash and recycling placed in each container at a maximum of 50 pounds, City Business Administrator George Savastano said.
In another major change, the contractor will now be required to pick up trash and recycling containers even if they are placed on private property, Savastano said. The new requirement is yet another reason why the cost of the trash and recycling contractors is going up.
Many property owners store their containers in trash enclosures – called “corrals” – that are located on their private property. Pineland Construction had raised liability concerns about picking up trash or recycling placed in the corrals or elsewhere on private property, but it will be a requirement starting Nov. 1, Savastano explained.
City Council approved the changes Thursday night by a 6-1 vote. Councilman Dave Winslow cast the dissenting vote after expressing concerns over the additional $660,000 it will cost the city for trash and recycling contracts with Pineland Construction.
“To me, that’s very high. I can’t see where we can justify that. Based on that reason, I can’t support that increase,” Winslow said during a discussion of the contracts.
Pineland Construction’s trash and recycling contracts are good through 2027. Savastano said each contract is worth about $1.3 million annually. The additional $660,000 that the city will pay to Pineland for the new changes amounts to $330,000 per contract.
Winslow noted that there is an “escalation clause” in the trash and recycling contracts tied to the Consumer Price Index. He said that the CPI in the South Jersey region in October came in at a 3.8 percent increase. But he pointed out that rate increase sought by Pineland Construction amounted to 33 percent.
“The contractor is asking for a 33 percent increase, and I object to that amount,” he said.
City Council approves the changes with trash and recycling pickups by a 6-1 vote.Other Council members also raised objections about the additional cost, but concluded that it would ultimately hurt the city more if there were any disruptions with the collection of trash and recycling.
“Not having trash collection is worse than increased costs,” Council President Pete Madden said.
Before the vote, Savastano warned that if Council did not approve the changes, thousands of properties would have been affected starting Nov. 1 because the contractor would not have been required to pick up any 64-gallon containers or have to collect trash and recycling containers left on private property.
Councilman Keith Hartzell said there simply would not be enough time to notify thousands of property owners that their trash and recycling might not be picked up if the changes were not approved.
“As bad as this is, there’s no way I’m doing that to people, because there’s no way we can get the word out to them fast enough,” Hartzell said while weighing the additional costs of trash and recycling collections against the potential disruptions described by Savastano.
At this stage, the city really had no choice other than to approve the changes to keep the trash and recycling collections going, Councilman Tony Polcini said.
Polcini said he hopes that the city will learn from this experience the next time it awards its trash and recycling contracts.
“I think it’s going to teach us all a lesson to do our due diligence better when we fill a new contract out,” he said.
When it was first hired in 2022, Pineland Construction was awarded separate five-year contracts for trash and recycling collection. Initially, it was paid a base amount of $975,000 per year for trash hauling and $975,000 annually for recycling pickups.
The contracts are adjusted for inflation, if needed, which has caused the price to increase more recently.
Councilman Dave Winslow, left, objects to the higher trash and recycling costs.Members of City Council said Pineland Construction is more reliable and does a far better job than Ocean City’s previous trash and recycling contractors. Pineland is owned by Sea Isle City Councilman Frank Edwardi Jr.
Before Pineland was hired, the city agreed to pay its previous trash hauler, Gold Medal Environmental, an extra $770,000 in 2022 to settle a financial dispute with the company.
Gold Medal had contended it could no longer afford to continue to provide waste-hauling services at the original price specified in its contract with Ocean City.
The company cited labor shortages, COVID pandemic-related disruptions in business and escalating fuel costs as the reasons for seeking more money from Ocean City.
