At Tuesday’s Fiscal Court meeting, the county approved the long awaited bid specifications for the future unified exclusive solid waste collections agreement for Logan County. This will encompass the unincorporated areas of the county and the four cities of Auburn, Adairville, Lewisburg and Russellville.

Scott Waste Services currently provides curbside trash pickup for all of the unincorporated areas of the county and four cities, only now it is two separate contracts, where the future agreement will be one.

It is anticipated that Scott will bid for the unified agreement, as they have been working with the county on the initiative from the beginning.

The plan to come together under one agreement began over a year ago after the proven success of a pilot program the county launched with the help of Scott Waste Services to offer curbside co-mingling recycling for 350 plus residents. The program was very successful prompting Magistrate Thomas Bouldin to push for the recycling to be offered to everyone at no additional cost. Scott Waste stepped up saying they would offer the recycling, if they could have a shot at the county and four cities’ business for a lengthy future agreement.

The way it is now Adairville, Auburn and Lewisburg bid with the county and Russellville bids on its own. By adding more customers together in one agreement, it makes the rates competitive. Plus the county wants to see all those who receive trash pickup services to get curbside recycling as well, which will be part of the bid.

Scott Waste Service said if they were awarded the bid, they would offer the curbside recycling to everyone of its customers right away, even though the agreement would not officially begin until April 1, 2015.

This does not assure Scott will be awarded the bid, however.

Each city had to agree to enter into an interlocal agreement with the county to proceed with the plan. They all agreed and the state passed the agreement last month. A committee was put together with representatives from each city, along with Judge Executive Logan Chick to assure each entity would get what they had been receiving in their current agreements. Chick reported that nothing has changed other than adding recycling and accounting for the closure of the landfill in 2015.

In the contract agreement it specifies that the local landfill will close in 2015, and as such, Logan County will lose the flowing benefits: free dump days used by citizens of Logan County and free disposal for waste from Logan County open dump cleanups and roadway litter removal (delivered to landfill by Logan County, the State Highway Department, Logan County cities, or by citizens of Logan County cleaning up under an order from the Logan County Solid Waste Coordinator). The terms say that the contractor, who is awarded the bid, shall provide, at no charge, comparable services to substitute for the aforementioned loss of services. The contractor shall attach to the bid proposal a detailed plan for the provision of said services.

Recycling containers, that look like the trash containers, but with a different color lid, shall be placed at all residential customer locations and will be picked up once a month in place of waste pickup.

Some have expressed concern about having more waste than recyclables if the service swapped out one week a month of trash pickup for recyclables. Scott Waste representative Tommy Mosley has said he didn’t see that happening because this program forces the public to manage their garbage. The more recyclables you put into the recycling container, the less you will put in the trash container. Mosley did say if that problem arose, Scott would come out and pick up the trash.

“A house is not going to produce anymore trash because of this program,” said Magistrate Bouldin, adding that the customer will be separating out their recyclables which leaves room in the garbage can.

The terms of the contract spell out the agreement shall be for five years from April 1, 2015-April 1, 2020. The contract can be renewed for an additional period of five years upon “Mutual Agreement” of both parties. The contract can only be renewed a maximum of three times, each for a period of five years, so as not to exceed a total of 20 years including the original five year contract. Any such renewal of the contract must be under the same terms, conditions, and prices set forth in the original contract.

The city’s of Auburn, Adairville, Lewisburg and Russellville, all currently have mandatory residential sold waste collection, whereas the county’s unincorporated areas are voluntary. This will not change.