GLOBE — In the on-going saga of Globe’s adaption to the new recycling environment, City Manager, Paul Jepson made a presentation and request for guidance to the city council on the subject of solid waste disposal.  (1 hour 8 minutes and 13 seconds into the city’s YouTube video of the Aug. 13 City Council Meeting.) No action is needed until a time nearer to the expiration of RAD’s contract in Dec. 2020, but Jepson wanted to get a number of options discussed and possibly more thoroughly researched ahead of time. Certain decisions need to be made well in advance of Globe transitioning to a new company or choosing to run garbage collection in-house.

He listed several issues. Number one was service. Jepson suggested that lower cost, and keeping the door open for future curb-side recycling, would argue in favor of renewing Right Away Disposal’s contract, but that these features were irrelevant if services were bad.

Multiple fiascos following the collapse of the recycling market and to its own buy-out by a multinational firm, caused RAD to become very unpopular, but complaints have recently gone down by 90 percent  according to Megan Durham and Jody Martin of the city Water and Solid waste office. Complaints involving commercial customers not so much, but Martin said that they know of these only “in roundabout ways” and not from the customers themselves. Jody Martin also said that Copper State customers, who were switched after RAD dropped them have made no complaints.

That established, Jepson outlined three options the city could choose for the near future. It could renew the RAD contract with 30-day pull-out notice changed to six months and a small increase in cost. It could go out to bid, or it could reinstitute city trash collection.

Jepson said that he had received suggestions from RAD that if the city went out to bid, RAD’s quote might be significantly higher than the cost of a simple renewal.

Putting the city back in the trash collection business was very appealing to all council members because of the local jobs it would supply, although it might be much more expensive and it would take time to implement. Councilman Shipley said he was on the council when the city decided to go with RAD, and that the decision turned on RAD’s ability to do curbside recycling which would extend the life of the local landfill and on its agreement to employ local workers.  Now, he said recycling was gone. The agreement to hire locally was renegotiated out of the contract. And the notice to pull out required in the first contract was renegotiated down to only 30 days. Councilman Jesse Leetham said that a minor increase in cost per customer $5 or so would be OK. Shipley and Freddy Rios and others on the council had seen the unfavorable preliminary figures involving the establishment and maintenance of a city-run service, but they and Councilwoman Giles joined with Mayor Gameros and the rest of the council in directing Jepson to develop detailed estimates which included all possible cost savings.