A Penny For Your Thoughts

We were talkin’ trash at the Board of Supervisors meeting Monday night. The issue was adoption of the county’s Solid Waste Management Plan for 2004-2024. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality requires that a new plan be submitted by July 1. The plan is strategic; an implementation plan will be designed by stakeholders: residents, collection companies, homeowners associations, and community organizations.

The Solid Waste Management Plan has several components: residential and business recycling, residential waste collection, construction/demolition/debris, the Energy/ Resource Recovery facility (incinerator), and funding. The only part at issue was residential waste collection. County staff recommended an option for the county to contract with private collection companies to provide waste collection services. County staff would monitor the contracts to ensure that service levels met customer needs and requirements, pay the collection companies, and ensure that program services complied with contract requirements. Currently, some county residents contract with private trash haulers; other residents who live in sanitary service districts receive trash collection from the county. About 40 percent of Mason District households have county collection.

There is an interesting dichotomy about local government’s role in solid waste collection. Some people think that trash hauling should be purely market-driven by private haulers; others think that trash hauling is a basic service that absolutely should be provided by local governments. Fairfax County’s hybrid system may be unusual.

Residents were concerned about possible loss of choice and loss of ability to negotiate prices and services for private trash hauling, while the trash haulers expressed concern about possible loss of their businesses if the county invoked something called the “five-year notice.” The five-year notice regarding displacement of private solid waste collection companies operating in the county is required by state law, and starts the clock “ticking.” At the end of the five years, the county could make changes, or not.

After a two-hour public hearing, and submittal of hundreds of comments made through e-mails, calls, and letters through individual Supervisors’ offices, I made a motion to delete all references to the five-year notice and establish a Board-appointed task force to review a number of issues including service quality, air emissions, competition, safety, disaster and emergency response, and unified recycling activities, and submit a report to the Board within 12 months. That motion carried by a 9-0 vote, as did my motion to adopt the Solid Waste Management Plan, as modified, and submit it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. For updated information about the adopted Solid Waste Management Plan, visit www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpwes/swmp.