Midland Davis signs recycling contract with Illinois city

Midland Davis signs recycling contract with Illinois city
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The City Council of Moline, Illinois, has voted to accept a bid from Moline-based Midland Davis Corp. to collect curbside recyclables in the city for a 10-year period. The council voted to approve the 10-year, $6.2 million contract in mid-March after earlier debating it at a prior council meeting.

The new contract will start April 1, 2018, and the program covers close to 16,000 households in the city.

Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis, saya the city will see a few changes to the program, which the company had previously held for 10 years. Some of the changes will include switching from a 48-gallon container to a 95-gallon container, as well as adding glass and aseptic cartons to the collection program.

The vote by the Moline City Council was made on March 13 and follows votes earlier in 2018 when the council voted against the contract because of issues it had, according to an online article from the Dispatch-Argus newspaper. The city also had considered handling the recycling internally but determined the cost would be greater. Moline does operate its own trash collection program.

In looking at the outsourcing the collection program as opposed to handling the collection of recyclables internally, the city estimated that handling recyclables by the city would cost around $6.6 million, about $400,000 more than Midland Davis is charging.

Davis says the city didn’t take into account there would be times when they would have to pay to handle the recyclables, a market dynamic that has been exacerbated by China tightening its scrap materials import restrictions.

The collected recyclables will continue to be shipped to the Scott Area Recycling Center in Davenport, Iowa, where the material is processed. Davis says Midland Davis will broker all the fiber generated through the program and will bid on other recyclables processed at the facility.

Davis estimates the program generates around 135 tons of recyclables per month, although by introducing glass (as well as aseptic cartons) with the new contract that figure could increase to around 180 tons of recyclables per month.

The recycling program will cost around $2.93 per household per month for the first year, increasing steadily to reach $3.65 per month by the 10th year. Looking at the length of the contract, Davis says he expects the company to have to charge for service roughly half the time.

Davis is upbeat about the future of the program. He says the city’s participation rate is better than 90 percent and the material being collected has contamination rates of around 5 percent, far less than levels in many other parts of the country.

The city is now looking to purchase the 95-gallon containers and may apply for a Closed Loop Fund Grant, which provides 0 percent financing. In the carts are purchased with the grant money the cost of the containers would be $842,000, according to the council minutes Without the grant, the carts would total closer to $980,000.

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Source: Recycling Today
Midland Davis signs recycling contract with Illinois city
<![CDATA[The City Council of Moline, Illinois, has voted to accept a bid from Moline-based Midland Davis Corp. to collect curbside recyclables in the city for a 10-year period. The council voted to approve the 10-year, $6.2 million contract in mid-March after earlier debating it at a prior council meeting. The new contract will start April 1, 2018, and the program covers close to 16,000 households in the city. Marty Davis, president of Midland Davis, saya the city will see a few changes to the program, which the company had previously held for 10 years. Some of the changes will include switching from a 48-gallon container to a 95-gallon container, as well as adding glass and aseptic cartons to the collection program. The vote by the Moline City Council was made on March 13 and follows votes earlier in 2018 when the council voted against the contract because of issues it had, according to an online article from the Dispatch-Argus newspaper. The city also had considered handling the recycling internally but determined the cost would be greater. Moline does operate its own trash collection program. In looking at the outsourcing the collection program as opposed to handling the collection of recyclables internally, the…