SAINT PAUL, MN (June 26, 2024)– The City of Saint Paul announces the next iteration of its citywide recycling and garbage program. The city has entered a seven-year contract with FCC Environmental to provide garbage, yard waste, and bulky item collection from 90% of the 1- to 4-unit households in Saint Paul. The city will provide new municipal garbage, yard waste, and bulky item collection to the remaining 10%, or approximately 6,500 1- to 4-unit properties. These services will begin April 1, 2025.
"This evolution of our hauling programs advances our city’s sustainability goals while addressing all of the concerns we most commonly hear from residents,” said Mayor Carter. “I look forward to moving it forward.”
As part of the agreement, FCC Environmental will invest more than $25 million for a new facility that will include a compressed natural gas (CNG) station; purchase more than 30 new collection trucks fueled by CNG; acquire fully electric pickups for route managers; and purchase an electric box truck for bulk and appliance pickup. The FCC facility will be located in Saint Paul.
Under the new garbage contract with FCC Environmental, there will be several improvements to the citywide garbage program, including:
- Instead of two to three bulky items collected per year, residents will be able to have up to one cubic yar bed (e.g. refrigerator size) picked up per month for each unit. Bulky item collection will be picked up with the regular collection day and will not require residents to call in advance. The exception is electronics items, which do require special handling.
- Opting out and cart sharing options will be phased in for property owners beginning 2026, with specific provisions.
- Property owners will receive quarterly bills from the city (not the hauler) after services have been rendered. This is a change from the current process in which the designated hauler pre-bills property owners.
- All customer service requests and issues will be handled by city staff. Residents will only need to contact one number for garbage, yard waste, bulky, or recycling collection or cart issues.
The city has also entered a five-year contract with Eureka Recycling for the collection of recyclable materials from approximately 80,000 properties with 1- to 4-units beginning November 1, 2024. The city has entered a seven-year contract with FCC Environmental to provide recycling collection services from approximately 48,000 residential properties with five or more units beginning November 1, 2024.
“As a city, we have ambitious short- and long-term goals for our citywide garbage and recycling programs,” said Sean Kershaw, Director of Saint Paul Public Works. “We are excited to partner with FCC and Eureka in this bold step to work closely with our residents for every household to take a more proactive role to reduce, reuse, and recycle more materials, and create overall less waste collectively as a community.”
In January 2022, Saint Paul leaders established a Garbage Advisory Committee of interested and engaged residents to learn more about the city’s existing coordinated collection program and provide feedback and input for the next iteration of the city’s garbage program. The Garbage Advisory Committee created recommendations for city leaders on how to improve operations and services to meet the changing needs of residents.
Using many of the key recommendations from the Garbage Advisory Committee, in November 2023, the City of Saint Paul issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for garbage, bulky, recyclables, and yard waste collection services. The RFP included draft contract language outlining required services from the hauler(s), including limited opt out provisions, cart sharing for multi-unit and adjacent single-family homes, billing and customer services provided by the city, and city-led cart maintenance and repairs.
The city received nine proposals by the December deadline. As a part of the process, all nine proposals were scored, evaluated, and interviewed. The RFP process was completed in February 2024. After the contracts were initially awarded, the final negotiations were completed in April 2024.
About Saint Paul Citywide Recycling and Garbage Programs
The City of Saint Paul’s Recycling and Garbage Programs provide education and resources for residents to reduce, reuse, recycle, and safely dispose of materials to promote a sustainable and healthy community for all. Saint Paul contracts with several haulers to provide citywide recycling collection services for 128,000 residential properties and garbage collection services for more than 65,000 residential households of 1- to 4-unit properties.
For more information and updates about the city’s recycling and garbage programs, please visit www.stpaul.gov/recycle or www.stpaul.gov/garbage.
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