Garbage haulers defend cart-collection fee

County Commissioner Bert Nasuti called the additional fees from garbage companies for cart collection “unscrupulous and despicable.”

But garbage haulers in Gwinnett County say they are only trying to save their companies by charging a collection fee to recover thousands of garbage and recycling receptacles by the end of the year. And they also have a few choice words for how they think they were treated by the agency tabbed to run the county’s new waste collection program.

While only two companies, Allied Waste and Waste Industries, have announced garbage can recovery fees, the process is going to create a flurry of activity as the county’s seven current haulers pull out.

“I have implemented a cart deposit with all my customers,” said Anthony Grutadaurio, operating manager for Red Oak Sanitation. “I’ve changed the way I do business, because the county changed the way it does business.”

Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful, the not-for-profit agency running the new waste disposal program, awarded contracts to Advanced Disposal Services Atlanta and Waste Pro Georgia to service the county’s six collection zones. The contracts run through 2015.

Clean and Beautiful Executive Director Connie Wiggins said the selection process was based on obtaining the best value for the vast majority of residents of Gwinnett County. In the end, she said, her agency selected the two companies that consistently submitted the lowest bids and presented the best credentials for quality service. The agency employed Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc., a solid waste consultant out of Fairfax, Va., to lead the selection process, she said.

Red Oak, which at one time serviced about 50,000 customers in Gwinnett County, did not bid on the new program because Grutadaurio said he was wary from the start. He said he began reducing his exposure in Gwinnett County two years ago. He now serves about 10,000 customers.

Small haulers like Red Oak say they are particularly upset by the $2 million performance bond Gwinnett Clean and Beautiful required before being considered for the program. The county had required a bond of $150,000 for haulers up to now.

“They put me out of business,” said Buddy Johnson, owner of Southern Sanitation, which has operated in the county for eight years and serves about 5,000 customers. “I’m going to last as long as I can last.”

Johnson, who has 14 employees including his wife, said he’s working out a cart collection plan now.

Another small company, Quality Waste, which serviced 15,000 customers and had 16 employees, was sold in April, soon after the new plan for collections was announced.

Sentiments were strong from Mike Ingle, vice president of Waste Industries, which is under fire from the county for announcing a $23.50 severance fee to its customers this week.

“We’ve been providing service to Gwinnett County for about the past 13 years,” he said. “And I was under the impression that we would continue to provide service to [those] residents. Now I’ve got an entire branch operation that has to be shut down and closed, and I will have 46 employees out of work in five weeks.”

Hal Risher, general manager for Robertson Sanitation, which serves 60,000 customers in Gwinnett, said he will be sad to leave.

“We’re the largest hauler in the county,” he said. “As far as we know, and the reports we got from the county, we were No. 1 on their service list. That means a lot to us.”