Over the last year, the city of Cedar Park has been looking at how to improve its waste management system. After a series of public meetings, surveys and a bidding process, the city will be sticking with its current waste management provider while making some enhancements to its yard trimmings pickup services.
Residents will be able to set out bags and bundles of yard trimmings to be recycled eight times per year. Previously, yard trimmings were thrown out with trash and taken to a landfill.
Weekly trash service and biweekly recycling will remain the same.
Cedar Park City Council voted unanimously Oct. 24 to authorize an agreement with Central Texas Refuse Inc.—the city’s current provider—for solid waste and recycling collection for single-family residences and city facilities.
The city’s current contract with Central Texas Refuse, which operates under the name Cedar Park Disposal in Cedar Park, expires in 2020. The new one, which starts Feb. 1, 2020, will last seven years, according to city documents.
Monthly service costs per household will increase from $15.57 to $16.04 in the first year, according to city documents.
The city has been working with consulting firm Burns & McDonnell to find an appropriate waste collection provider for the city. Some of the goals considered during the procurement process included finding the best value for the city, maintaining a low service cost and encountering few service disruptions, according to Burns & McDonnell representative Scott Pasternak.
“Here, the goal was to provide dependable service with minimal service disruption to residents regarding service schedules and service levels,” Pasternak told council Oct. 24.
The city issued requests for proposals in the spring and received applications from Central Texas Refuse, Texas Disposal Systems, Waste Connections and Waste Management, according to city documents.
Pasternak said city staff ultimately chose to recommend Central Texas Refuse because the company was not proposing a change in service days for residents, and the company is already familiar with Cedar Park.
The runner-up, Texas Disposal Systems, proposed a change in service days for 2,500 residents, which ran counter to council's goal of not disrupting services.
Representatives from TDS appeared at the Oct. 24 meeting and argued the service they were offering would be more efficient for the city.
“You have a fairly inefficient process,” TDS representative Rick Fraumann said. “We asked to do [a] change in days because it’s related to efficiency.”
Ultimately, however, City Council decided to continue contracting with Central Texas Refuse.
Currently, households in Cedar Park receive weekly trash pickup, which includes one cart and seven out-of-cart bulky items, and recycling placed in a cart is picked up every other week. Under the new contract, there will also now be eight collections per year of bags and bundles of yard trimmings.
How the city plans to approach household hazardous waste service going forward will be discussed at a later date, according to city documents.
