This commentary is by Burlington City Councilor Jane Stromberg.
Trash, garbage, waste, offal, junk. These are just a few names for something most Vermonters don’t give a second thought about when taking it out to their residential Dumpster or moving their trash cans to the side of the road, with the contents never be seen again.
Burlingtonians spend hundreds of dollars annually on waste pickup services but the topic is barely discussed in public or brought up as a significant issue.
Burlington residents, like most Vermonters, generally easily recognize the standard dark blue background and white font of Casella Waste Systems, a corporate empire responsible for collecting not only most of Vermont’s waste but most of the waste in the surrounding New England states as well.
Casella is highly valued, with 2018 revenues of over $600 million, with more value in its 1,400 trucks and tens of thousands of dumpsters and wheeled bins. More importantly, Casella owns a super valuable resource in the modern economy: Vermont’s only open-air landfill, located in the Northeast Kingdom.
Why is this important? After all, it’s only just trash, right? Well, like almost every part of the American economy, a single corporate entity holds almost monopolistic power over a specific regional market and uses it for its own benefit.
In Vermont, including Burlington, Casella has significant control over the state’s waste management system, as well as holding significant political influence within Montpelier, including generous donations to political campaigns, elected representatives, and disclosed lobbying expenses.
Not only should this economic influence raise eyebrows but Casella’s current position allows it to get away with various controversial environmental practices as well, illustrated in its 2018 annual report which states that Casella paid out millions of dollars in liabilities and cleanups throughout New England. Indeed, Casella’s practices earned it the title of being one of the dirtiest polluters within the entire region, according to the Toxics Action Center.
But the future isn’t as hopeless as it may look. Improvements in waste management practices are often made during times of environmental concern. Burlington’s consolidated recycling program was created in such a time and it has proven to be green and cost-efficient over the many years the city has run it. The city has proven that it can compete with the private sector, create good, middle-class union jobs and run a local democratically controlled, environmentally and economically effective nonprofit program as an essential public good.
We are currently in a similar time of concern. A study commissioned by the city’s Department of Public Works found Burlington’s current collection system has serious environmental problems: more truck traffic, emissions, and road damage from multiple haulers servicing the same streets. This is due to there being, currently, four main trash haulers, including Casella, and several additional compost haulers servicing city residential properties.
It also found that consolidating this system reduces the environmental costs of excess truck traffic, with an estimated two-thirds reduction in vehicle miles traveled and emissions if a fully consolidated collection system is adopted.
Additionally, consolidation would reduce infrastructure impacts of excess truck traffic, reduce litter using wheeled carts by all residents, and reduce noise in neighborhoods. According to the public works department, while the “current collection of residential trash, recycling and compost is fragmented, inefficient and costly, [a] fully consolidated collection system will improve convenience, reduce environmental and community impacts, and save residents money.”
The department has also delved into the economics of a consolidated collection system. It found that a consolidated system achieves better economies of scale, projecting that Burlington residents could save somewhere between $1.6 million and $3.6 million each year by implementing a weekly consolidated collection model compared to residents having a weekly subscription model. And it found that the monthly cost between a public municipal system and a privatized franchise system is about the same.
So why pick the municipal system? Why should people care about creating a municipal waste collection system, let alone even speak in favor of it publicly? Well, there are several reasons
1. Solid waste collection and management is a recognized public need, function and essential public good. A public system enables more public, democratic and economic control. A municipal system will create a publicly owned, affordable, efficient public service for an essential social function.
2. Public control can take considerations other than the private profit of owners into account, allowing us to value the concerns of ratepayers, the environment and workers. This means greater control and flexibility over rates and system design since public rates are not based on making a sufficient profit for private owners or bidding out for many years at a time.
3. Public consolidated collection is the system that is most in the public interest because consolidation creates monopoly conditions that are least conducive to lowering costs through competition; monopolization is fostered because customer costs decrease as the number of customers increases, thereby making competition not advantageous.
The Department of Public Works analysis shows that cost-effectiveness — providing the same level of service at a substantially lower cost — is not created by franchising out to private haulers like Casella.
4. A public system will build a stronger middle class, building a more just economy through growing union jobs and fighting privatization that would eliminate union jobs and replace them with lower-paying jobs with worse benefits (i.e., no pensions). Collection consolidation could provide on-the-job protections like the union contract and grievance procedures.
5. A municipal system keeps the income generated in public hands. The city is in a good position to administer a program since it runs a citywide recycling system, and public water and electric systems. It would add capacity to the Department of Public Works by adding staff who could be used in other capacities, such as snow removal and street cleaning.
A municipal consolidated waste collection service would, therefore, simplify collection routes and contracts, reduce environmental costs, provide more union jobs to the area, and more. And this idea isn’t otherworldly; 83% of American communities have the municipality either collecting waste streams itself or contracting with private haulers, with 40% of those having a municipal operation.
Indeed, Burlington had a consolidated waste collection service itself until austerity cuts in the 1970s. The idea of a consolidated public municipal waste collection system isn’t “radical”; it’s common sense.
So the great question we are presented with is: Does the city of Burlington really want to continue with some privatized system handling its waste? The risks of monopolization and higher long-term costs for the city are already realized under the current influence of Casella’s waste collection and will be increased under a franchised-out system. Public and democratically-owned social services have proven to be far more beneficial for communities, and worth the short-term costs.
So, does Burlington need, or rather deserve, a better system of waste collection than it already has? I believe so, and I am not alone. The city will have some admittedly hefty short-term costs, and of course, there will be issues along the way, as is the case with any public project.
But with the accompanying long-term benefits for the city, the local working community, and the environment, it can be worth the haul. I hope you’ll join me in supporting a municipal consolidated collection system.
