New Garbage Contract Approved By Brookfield Council

BROOKFIELD, WI—The City of Brookfield Common Council approved a deal with a new garbage contractor, GFL (Green for Life), which will begin in 2022.

Council approved the contract on Aug. 17 in an 11-3 vote, with Aldermen Bill Carnell, Brad Blumer, and Kathryn Wilson casting the dissenting votes. The current contractor is Waste Management and the contract with the city ends in late December.

In the last few weeks there has been an uptick in missed garbage and recycling pickups, Blumer told Patch on Monday. Sometimes a single house was impacted, but sometimes whole blocks missed their collection.

"Misses aren't uncommon, but there also has been been a decrease in customer service quality since Waste Management acquired Advanced Disposal. I can only speculate as to why this may be occurring. My assumption is that some trucks with veteran drivers that were inherited from Advanced Disposal are probably operating fine, while other newer (or reassigned) drivers are still learning their routes," he said.

During the meeting, members provided feedback on their preferred direction moving forward with regard to the types of services provided by various waste collection bidders, according to Blumer.

"There were three main options that were discussed, with this change in cost being in addition to the budgeted annual increase in our current contract with Advanced Disposal/Waste Management," Blumer said.

• Up the drive service only: A 6-percent increase in cost.
• Curbside pickup (with optional subscription up-the-drive) and weekly yard waste pickup: 5-percent decrease in cost.
• Curbside pickup (with optional subscription up-the-drive) only: 16-percent decrease in cost.

The majority of council preferred to keep service as-is, and was comfortable with continuing to pay the premium for universal up-the-drive pickup.

"This costs the city 6-percent more than the previous up-the-drive service, and approximately 22-percent more than a pure curbside collection service. The overall cost differential between up-the-drive and curbside collection will be around $4 million over the seven year contract," Blumer said.

Yard waste pickup will not be a service in 2022 and beyond without a future contract modification, and would lead to a higher increase in contract cost compared to the current deal.