Boston is casting a large web for waste and recycling concepts because it appears to think about completely different constructions for future contracts whereas making progress on long-term waste discount objectives.
Over the summer season, town’s Public Works Division opened a request for info to solicit enter from “startups, companies, educational establishments, consultants and non-profits,” amongst others, about expertise and shopper engagement improvements. Interviews are ongoing and the submission kind closes March 3, 2025.
“The thought is to get people who find themselves working within the area and haven’t had the chance to attach with significant stakeholders,” mentioned Avantika Mathur, a waste discount fellow with town, including that the objective is to create “a proper, equitable platform for everyone to reply.”
Boston’s zero waste progress
Boston finalized a zero waste plan in 2019, with a objective on the time of probably reaching an 80% recycling charge by 2035. In keeping with the RFI, Boston generates an estimated 250,000 tons of residential waste per 12 months. PWD doesn’t handle town’s business waste stream.
The town has expanded a number of applications lately as a part of its waste discount objectives. Key examples embrace the launch of a curbside organics program in 2022, which now covers an estimated 24,000 residents through a contract with Save That Stuff and Rubbish to Backyard.
In keeping with a presentation by Mathur at a current Round Cities Week occasion, that program collected an estimated 1,675 tons of fabric in the latest 12 months of knowledge. Moreover, town maintains greater than a dozen organics drop-off bins that collected an estimated 250-plus tons within the newest fiscal 12 months.
Boston has additionally ramped up textile and mattress collections, pushed by waste ban insurance policies from the Massachusetts Division of Environmental Safety. The town collected greater than 19,400 mattresses between June and October of this 12 months, throughout peak school and house transferring season. It additionally collected over 900,000 kilos of textiles throughout FY24 through dozens of drop-off bins.
RFI and future contracts
The RFI requires concepts in 4 classes: Assortment and disposal improvements, waste prevention and recycling, information and analytics, and coverage and conduct change. It’s also open to different concepts that will not match inside these classes.
Mathur mentioned the primary class is a key precedence, due partially to town’s deal with rodent management. Boston just lately put out a rodent motion plan that mentions waste administration. Containerization is one other space of curiosity, because it has been in New York Metropolis. Whereas some elements of Boston use wheeled carts, others don’t attributable to area constraints.
Know-how additionally comes up in a number of RFI classes. The RFI mentions an curiosity in route optimization concepts, in addition to fleet electrification. A number of sections additionally point out synthetic intelligence and information analytics. Mathur mentioned information is a rising focus space for the division, with an curiosity in “applied sciences that assist us simplify all the information that we’re gathering.”
Mathur mentioned the company doesn’t have a set timeline but for enacting these concepts, but it surely was open to listening to from anybody — together with with concepts that will not match clearly into the 4 classes.
Final 12 months, throughout a council listening to about rodent points, a PWD consultant indicated that town was “reconsidering every part” for its subsequent waste and recycling assortment contract that was set to run out in June 2024. Different recycling and disposal agreements have been additionally set to run out on an identical timeline, although town indicated it was extra possible they’d be prolonged.
PWD later ended up shopping for itself extra time by reupping or extending these contracts, together with for assortment, for a number of years.
This included a brand new three-year settlement with Capitol Waste Providers to gather residential refuse and recyclables throughout the entire metropolis’s districts. The contract, which took impact in July, will run for 3 years and has the choice for 2 one-year extensions. In keeping with a Might letter to Mayor Michelle Wu from Chief of Streets Jascha Franklin-Hodge, obtained through a public information request, the contract contains provisions for “extra accountability, new packer vehicles, and better staffing.”
Franklin-Hodge mentioned within the letter that town opted to proceed working with Capitol fairly than put out a brand new RFP due to restricted market competitors. Its final RFP, in 2019, solely obtained two responses.
“Our survey of the present market and discussions with firms within the trade strongly prompt {that a} aggressive bid course of wouldn’t yield higher choices for town presently. Over the time period of this contract, we’ll consider methods to implement new insurance policies and restructure our service mannequin to draw extra market contributors with the objective of executing our subsequent contract via a solicitation that’s ready to attract significant market competitors.”
The town additionally selected to increase for 3 years an present recyclables processing contract with Casella Waste Programs, which just lately spent an estimated $20 million to improve its Boston MRF. It did the identical for disposal by extending contracts with Reworld and WIN Waste Improvements for 3 years every. A yard waste contract with Republic Providers, which began in 2022, can also be set to achieve its preliminary expiration date alongside the opposite agreements in June 2027.
Many of those firms have held related contracts with Boston earlier than, and so they may very well be well-positioned to obtain new ones attributable to their native infrastructure. The town’s RFI goals to discover all attainable choices, whereas stipulating this course of “is for informational functions solely, and respondents might assist form a future RFP, however they don’t seem to be assured a contract or award sooner or later.”