Case Studies

Project Background

The City’s existing solid waste and recycling collection agreement with Waste Management (WM) was set expire in 2019. In 2017 the City engaged HF&H to perform detailed diversion program planning in anticipation of the new agreement term, to assist the City in determining whether to enter into sole-source negotiations with WM, or to go out to competitive bid. Following the initial planning process, the City elected to engage in a competitive procurement process, which was managed by HF&H. A key goal through the process was to design the new franchise agreement to be compliant with the requirements of SB 1383, which presented a challenge, as the regulations were in draft form at the time.

Project Results

The City received four proposals through the competitive RFP process. Following a preliminary evaluation process, HF&H assisted the City with dual negotiations with two proposers, WM and Alameda County Industries (ACI), which resulted in the City entering into an agreement with ACI. The new agreement retained all services provided under the prior franchise agreement, as well as added the following:

• 90% diversion by the end of the contract term, with significant penalties for non-performance;
• Multi-family and commercial organic materials collection and recovery;
• Updated, SB 1383 compliant color-coded containers and container labels;
• Food scrap kitchen pails for residential customers;
• In-home recyclables tote bags for multi-family customers;
• Unlimited recycling service for single-family customers;
• Additional organic materials collection for single-family customers;
• Free collection of appliances and furniture on specified clean-up days;
• Recovery of reusable materials from community clean-up days;
• Compost give-away events;
• Annual recyclables drop off event;
• Curbside used cooking oil collection;
• Free 25 feet of “push” service for bin customers;
• Increased recycling technical assistance and public education;
• Local call center;
• Dedicated outreach staff which will begin prior to the commencement date.