Rancho Palos Verdes OKs Deal for Waste Pickup and Recycling

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council on Tuesday approved a five-year franchise agreement with Waste Management of California Inc. to pick up trash and recyclables at all multiple-family residential complexes beginning Feb. 1.

Waste Management also holds a franchise on trash collection for most of the single-family residential units in Rancho Palos Verdes. (Ivy Rubbish Disposal Services serves fewer than 500 residences in the Portuguese Bend area.)

Under the terms of the agreement, the cost of trash pickup at townhouses, condominiums and apartments will vary depending on the number of times trash is picked up and the size and number of trash bins at each site.

The city negotiated with Waste Management for the flat rate per bin, bin size and number of pickups per week. For example, one three-cubic-yard bin picked up once a week will cost $63 per month. The same bin picked up six days a week would cost $162 per month.

A comparative analysis by the city of rates that residential complexes are presently paying shows many rates will go up, some by as much as 100%. Public Works Director George Wentz told the council that the old rates did not include a franchise fee or a recycling fee. He said that in some instances trash collection companies employed by the housing complexes had not increased rates recently because they knew the city was preparing to seek trash collection bids.

Funds earned from the sale of recyclables collected in the city will come back to the city to help pay the costs of implementing a state law that requires cities to significantly curtail the amount of waste headed for landfills.