Philadelphia signs recycling contract with WM

Philadelphia signs recycling contract with WM
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The City of Philadelphia has announced the signing of a new recycling contract with Waste Management Inc. (WM) that will result in 100 percent of the recyclables collected by the city being processed at WM’s material recovery facility (MRF).

Under the plan, the city will pay $90 to $100 per ton to process the collected recyclables under a best-value contract, with incentives for decreasing recycling contamination. The city is currently operating under an interim agreement that mimics the terms of the proposed contract.

“The Streets Department, along with representatives from Procurement and the Law Department, worked intently to deliver a contract that combined fiscal responsibility with incentives for cleaning up the recycling stream,” says Mayor Jim Kenney. “Ultimately, the best value has been negotiated on behalf of all taxpayers, getting us back on track with our goals for Zero Waste by 2035.”   

Prior to negotiations, the city had been processing half of collected recyclables at a MRF while sending the other half for recovery at a waste-to-energy facility.  The temporary process was in effect for nearly six months, following changes in the global recycling market that challenged the way municipalities around the world processed recycling.

“The shift in the recycling market coincided with the end of the city’s previous recycling contract,” says Michael Carroll, deputy managing director for the Office of Transportation Infrastructure Systems. “Recycling has been a volatile market over the years, at times generating revenue and at other times costing the city millions to process. To be sustainable, we all need to reduce what we consume to produce the most favorable situation.” 

The new contract will be supported with an educational campaign emphasizing the call for a reduction in contamination. Contamination rates were last calculated in 2017 at 19.2 percent for the City of Philadelphia and at 25 percent nationally. The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates 75 percent of municipal solid waste (MSW) to be recyclable, but about 34 percent gets recycled currently.

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Source: Recycling Today
Philadelphia signs recycling contract with WM
<![CDATA[The City of Philadelphia has announced the signing of a new recycling contract with Waste Management Inc. (WM) that will result in 100 percent of the recyclables collected by the city being processed at WM’s material recovery facility (MRF). Under the plan, the city will pay $90 to $100 per ton to process the collected recyclables under a best-value contract, with incentives for decreasing recycling contamination. The city is currently operating under an interim agreement that mimics the terms of the proposed contract.“The Streets Department, along with representatives from Procurement and the Law Department, worked intently to deliver a contract that combined fiscal responsibility with incentives for cleaning up the recycling stream,” says Mayor Jim Kenney. “Ultimately, the best value has been negotiated on behalf of all taxpayers, getting us back on track with our goals for Zero Waste by 2035.”    Prior to negotiations, the city had been processing half of collected recyclables at a MRF while sending the other half for recovery at a waste-to-energy facility.  The temporary process was in effect for nearly six months, following changes in the global recycling market that challenged the way municipalities around the world processed recycling. “The shift in the recycling market coincided…