A Spruce Grove company will handle St. Albert’s organic waste collection under a three-year contract the city announced Tuesday.
Sandstone Enviro-Waste Services won the contract after a request for proposals.
Exact costs are still being finalized as the city pinpoints the exact number of households that will receive organic collection service, said solid waste program co-ordinator, Christian Benson.
The city’s 2011 operating budget allocated $747,000 for the curbside organic program and the cost of the organic collection would fall within this budget, Benson said.
Sandstone Enviro-Waste Services has been operating since 1991 and has contracts with numerous Alberta communities, including Redwater, Westlock, Spruce Grove and Morinville, said CEO Lisa Standeven.
“We’re really excited to serve the residents, the administration and the council of St. Albert,” Standeven said.
It will take three trucks operating full-time to perform St. Albert’s organic waste collection, Standeven said. The company has enough vehicles in its fleet to handle the extra work but will buy three more to enable it to have six in the city when needed, Standeven said.
“With statutory holidays we want to make sure we have enough assets to address the high volume days,” she said.
The city is adding curbside organics collection to a new waste disposal program that’s scheduled to begin June 1. Each household that currently receives curbside garbage collection will receive a brown cart for household garbage and a green cart for household organics. Blue bag collection will continue as usual.
The city has already awarded contracts to dispose of its waste at the Roseridge facility east of Morinville. Earlier this month it announced a decision to order 35,000 waste containers from a Quebec-based manufacturer. It has ordered five automated trucks that will handle garbage collection.
The organics pickup contract is the last piece of the puzzle, said Mayor Nolan Crouse.
“Each one of these steps is just important. It is continual reinforcement that we’re moving forward,” he said.
“This was the last key milestone,” he added. “Now it’s a matter of making sure that our residents are fully informed.”
The company that won the contract is not the same one — Ever Green Ecological Services — that donated $5,000 to Crouse’s re-election campaign last fall.
The two issues aren’t linked, Crouse said.
“I don’t pick who donates money and I don’t pick who is selected in terms of contracts,” he said.
