City to seek new bids for compost collection and processing

The question of which contractor or contractors will pick up and deliver compostable items for processing is up in the air for now. Currently, those organic items are collected from customers’ green bins under a contract with Austin Resource Recovery.

At last week’s Council meeting, Mayor Kirk Watson announced that Council would not be considering an item awarding a contract to Organics by Gosh. Watson did not give a reason for the withdrawal of the item, but the Austin Monitor has learned that Austin Resource Recovery “requested the item be withdrawn and that the Financial Services Department re-solicit these services,” according to a city spokesperson, Kimberly Moore.

Further, Moore said via email, “ARR’s reasoning included: (1) the department would be benefited by having multiple contractors but there was only one offeror found to be responsive to solicitation’s requirements, and (2) offeror’s prices are significantly higher than the current contract.”

The decision to withdraw the item came on the heels of the Zero Waste Advisory Commission’s refusal to endorse an expensive contract for a single contractor.

Two companies, Organics by Gosh and Texas Disposal Systems, bid on a contract with ARR for three years, with two possible one-year extensions. ARR has expressed a desire to have two locations for composting so that trucks will not have to drive as far.

Purchasing is handled by the Financial Services Department, which issued an invitation for bids, not a request for proposal.

Organics by Gosh proposed a three-year contract for up to $11,800,000. That is estimated to be $42.26 per ton. TDS says its offer was for $27.40 per ton, and Adam Gregory of TDS says the resulting contact with Organics by Gosh would cost the city an extra $4.458 million. He said the city currently has a contract with Organics by Gosh, which is charging only $19.98 per ton.

At its Nov. 13 meeting, the Zero Waste Advisory Commission unanimously rejected staff’s proposal, expressing their need for more information about the significant cost increase proposed by Organics by Gosh and the “rejection of the second vendor’s lower bid due to a purchasing related exception.”

The commission requested that someone from the purchasing department come to the commission’s January meeting to explain exactly why the TDS proposal was rejected.

In a fact sheet shared with the Monitor, Gregory said that “if the city selected TDS, it would provide a savings of $4.5 million to the city and ratepayers over the life of the contract. However, TDS’ bid was rejected because of some very minor exceptions taken to the terms of the solicitation.”

TDS already has a contract with the city to pick up trash and deliver it to its landfill in South Austin. Under that contract, city auditors can come to the TDS office and look at the company’s books. However, the financial documents remain under the control of TDS and never become available to the public. Gregory said the purchasing department wanted to change the rules for this program, allowing city employees to copy and take away financial information, making the information susceptible to public information requests.

“We’re a privately held company,” Gregory said. “There are many publicly owned entities” that would use that information to compete with TDS.

Austin Resource Recovery is expecting to expand its composting program from 44,722 tons collected today to up to 60,000 tons of compost delivered annually. The contract in question is set to expire on Feb. 20. According to background information from ARR, “if the city is unable to secure a contract, ARR will experience disruptions, delays or suspensions of curbside collection,” though it’s also possible that the current contract could be extended past February.

Photo by SuSanA Secretariat, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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